Martha Cabada

Chef, 48-foot sailing yacht Victoria

Date interviewed: November 2008

How did you learn to cook?

I’m originally from Mexico. I was kind of fussy about food when I was a child, and I started early in developing an interest in seeing other choices. We were three kids, and my mother was a busy woman, and the food was plain. Food 20 years ago was not like it is now. There were no new products in the market. There was no variety.

            I went to university in Chihuahua for a degree in systems engineering, and I worked as a quality manager for Chrysler, overseeing 120 people. I lived in Detroit, Michigan, for two years, and that’s where I met Klaus, who is now my husband. He worked for Chrysler Europe, and we met at a quality control meeting in 1997. We eventually moved to Austria, and his mother was an excellent cook, everything organic and lots of pastries.

            She encouraged me to cook, and I learned a lot about Mediterranean food while I was there. I also picked up some Thai, plus French and Greek cheeses, and of course the Austrian pastries.

How did you get from there to being a chef on a charter yacht?

Klaus had a sailboat. He had cruised the Caribbean from 1992 until 1994 and always wanted to go back, so we moved to Grenada. We knew the skipper of the 48-foot Swan sailing yacht Victoria, and it turned out the family wanted to sell, so we bought the boat in 2004. We wanted to have fun and live aboard.

            Then in 2006, we were in St. Lucia, and we met the couple who run the 52-foot sailing yacht Silent Partner II. They told us all about charter, so we sailed to the British Virgin Islands and signed into the fleet with CharterPortBVI last year.

Did you learn more about cooking once you got into charter?

The chef aboard the 65-foot sailing catamaran Wanderlust has really helped me a lot. He is very creative and not afraid to try new things. I worked as a steward with their crew during a charter so that I could learn, and I kept sneaking into the galley with my camera to get ideas.

            I also worked at a specialty steak restaurant in Mexico during a vacation there in August of this year. It was just a few hours, a long enough time to spy in the kitchen and learn.

You just won “Best of Show” at the 2008 Tortola yacht show. What did you cook?

It was a four-course meal, and I think that my presentation is what helped me to win. It was my first time entering, and I still can’t believe that I won. I stand 6-foot-2, and my galley is just four feet wide by four feet long. I managed to win with just two feet of headroom while I was preparing the meal.

            My appetizer was tangled shrimp with pineapple chili garlic sauce. It won for best appetizer in the show, in addition to helping me win best overall.

            My salad was avocado and mango on baby greens, all of it served atop a pineapple wheel.

            My entrée was a fig- and blue cheese-stuffed pork tenderloin, and my dessert was an Austrian dish called marillerknödeln. It’s like a cheesecake dumpling filled with fruit, and I used mango, apricot, and strawberry. It’s actually the favorite of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s from the same hometown in Austria as my husband, Klaus.

What do you think makes your yacht Victoria special?

This has been a very good year for us. In February, at the Swan Rendezvous at the Bitter End Yacht Club, we won “Best Maintained Swan.” That was out of all the 43-foot to 100-foot Swans, and we are a 1975 build.

            Klaus and I are both engineers with a quality-control background, which of course helps. If you look at all the screws onboard, they are all aligned in the same direction. Every pump, every switch, every light always works.

How do you determine what meals you will prepare for charter guests?

I read the preference sheets that they fill out, and then I call or e-mail the guests before they come onboard for charter. It’s a small galley on Victoria, and I have to be detailed about the provisioning.

Have you had any major culinary challenges with previous guests?

We had one two-week charter with people who were strictly vegetarian, ate no garlic or onion, wanted no alcohol on the boat, and would allow nothing red on their plates. He was 81, and she was 43, and they were strict followers of the St. Germain religion.

            We were really scared about that charter, but it turned out to be our best of the season. They have turned out to be repeat clients and are coming back in April.

What are some of your specialty dishes, or often-requested favorites?

I love to make tuna carpaccio with black sesame seeds. And as a dessert, my molten lava chocolate cake, people really seem to like that.

What else should CharterWave readers know about you and Victoria?

Klaus and I, between the two of us, speak English, Spanish, German, and Austrian, so we know the native languages of many people who might want to come sailing.

            We are based in the British Virgin Islands from November through June, and then we sail in the Grenadines from July through October. We also are happy to pick up our charter guests in St. Thomas, St. Maarten, or St. Barth’s, and we love to have charter guests for the Swan rendezvous each winter, typically in February.

            And if you want to learn how to sail while you are onboard, Klaus will teach you. He will never put you in harm’s way, and he will show you how to steer.

Victoria takes two guests at an all-inclusive weekly rate of $6,900. Any reputable charter broker can help you book a week onboard, and you can learn more about the yacht at its own informative website.