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By Marian Betancourt
Photography courtecy Holland America Lines.
Wining And Dining A Crowd At Sea On Holland America’s Noordam
In Ketchikan, Alaska, where the Noordam docked for the day, the ship’s Culinary Operations Manager Bart Groeneveld was overseeing the delivery of a truckload of just-caught fish, while the ship’s passengers took their leave for a day in town. They would return that evening to yet another sumptuous dinner, and if they were dining at the intimate Pinnacle Grill, their menu choices would include cedar planked Alaskan halibut. But, no matter which of the ship’s dining venues the 1,918 passengers preferred, they would consume about 440 pounds of fish that evening. The seven-day Alaska voyage will use up 137,500 pounds of fresh veggies, more than 20,000 pounds of meat, poultry and seafood and 1,636 bottles of wine.
The Noordam, christened in 2006, is one of Holland America Line’s 5-star Vista Class ships celebrated for their fine accommodations and exceptional cuisine. While many of the popular cruise ship lines are now owned by the giant Carnival Corporation, each line keeps its own distinctive identity. For example, Holland America markets their cruises to readers of food and wine magazines, rather than to the television audiences preferred by cruise lines that promote activities, rather than cuisine.
The Noordam also has a Culinary Arts Center operated in partnership with Food and Wine Magazine. Holland America contracts with the magazine to provide them a  certain number of guest chefs such as Marcus Samuelsson of New York’s Acquavit, for some cruises and these sell out early. An afternoon cooking demonstration by Noordam Executive Chef Rene Rojas Olea was reminiscent of a Food Network show with an enthusiastic audience of about 170 passengers who got a warm up quiz. Question: What is hyssop? “It’s an herb similar to tarragon,” replied a passenger, who won a souvenir apron for her culinary smarts. Chef Olea prepared quenelle of buffalo mozzarella with marinated beets and herbs and samples were passed around. Cooking classes for smaller groups are also available for a minimal charge during some voyages.
The Food and Beverage Crew
The ship operates with two distinct crews: one for the ship and one for the hotel, a total of 800, for the Noordam. There are 307 people — from chefs to wine stewards to waiters to dishwashers -- dedicated solely to the food and beverage operation, under the direction of the Hotel Manager, an officer known to the crew as the “Hot Man.” On this Alaska cruise, Rene Tuinman was the “hot man,” and said that after working on hotels on land, he “fell in love with the job,” despite the 7-day work week and long hours.
 Each ship has its own executive chef, but Master Chef Rudi Sodamin is the creative force who develops all the menus for the Holland America fleet’s entire food and beverage operation. His cookbook Taste of Excellence published by Rizzoli in 2006 contains some of the recipes used on board and there are “Daily Suggestions from “Rudi Sudamin” on each day’s menus. The executive chef on each ship can add his or her flair to the dishes, but because there are such large numbers of people to be fed, there must be an established course of action with the menu. Menus are established in advance for particular cruises based on number of days at sea, number of stops, and where in the world they are. As mentioned, fresh fish can be procured on the Alaskan voyage, but on an ocean crossing of four or five days, stocks cannot be replenished.
All meals (and tips) are included in the cost of the cruise. However, passengers do pay for wine and spirits and the price depends upon where they drink it. For example, a glass of wine at the Vista Restaurant with lunch costs $5.18, compared to $10.35 for the same drink at the Crow’s Nest, the elegant glass enclosed lounge on top of the ship over the pilothouse.
The ship stocks 1,636 bottles of wine, 450 bottles of champagne and sparkling wine, and 332 cases of beer for the seven-day cruise. A wide choice of wines are available in the restaurants from a $26 Chardonnay from Tarapaca Chile, to a $98 Marchesi di Barolo Cannubi from Italy. A Veuve Clicquot, Yellow Lake brut is $88. Holland America has its own commemorative cabernet sauvignon, which sells for $28 a bottle. The mark up on the price of wine depends on the wine and where the company gets it from. “Since we ship wines around the world in containers we might pay more for getting it onboard than a restaurant would charge for it locally,” said Oliver Hammerer of Holland America’s revenue department.
A Choice of Restaurants
 Vista is the main restaurant, a vast two-level space that can seat 1,100 passengers at a time for three meals a day. In this lovely space with fine linens, table flowers, and wide windows overlooking the sea, diners can sit at a small table for two, or mingle with others at a table for six or eight. There is a variety of breakfast selections including specialties, such as Dutch apple pancakes. A lunch choice might be a Fisherman’s seafood salad of pieces of warm halibut, shrimp, and scallops, with a lemony dressing, with some mango bits and tomato. A chilled sour cherry soup with crème fraîche and fried ginger is a favorite dinner appetizer. Oven roasted New Zealand rack of lamb rubbed with Dijon mustard and fragrant garlic and herb crumbs and served with pinot noir sauce, mint virgin olive oil, ratatouille and savory potato pie is a popular entrée.
 Gold Rush Baked Alaska is on the dessert menu nightly during the Alaska cruise and on the last evening becomes the basis of a farewell celebration called The Pageant of the Baked Alaska. The entire wait staff, each carrying a silver tray of the dessert lit up with sparklers, parade through the restaurant to the sound of Straus’s Radetsky March. For this dessert, French vanilla ice cream is crusted with a double chocolate fudge brownie and a meringue and a dusting of edible gold. Toppings change each day from hot fudge, blueberry confit, or brandied cranberries.
 The smaller 148-seat Pinnacle Grill features Pacific Northwest cuisine and style, and is open for dinner by reservation and is the only venue with a cover charge ($30). Here, in a more intimate space mid-ships with low key lighting, dinner is served on Bulgari china, Riedel glassware and Egyptian table linens. A unique clamshell grill that reaches a temperature of 1600F guarantees the signature Sterling Silver steaks are cooked to perfection. These are served with a sauce of choice including classic Bernaise or sundried tomato, horseradish-mustard. (And cedar planked Alaskan halibut just out of the sea with Alaska King crab and crab hollandaise is a must.)
Passengers who prefer not to dress up or want to hang out in the hot tubs, pools, or shuffleboard decks, all of which are on the top deck, enjoy the more casual Lido Restaurant. The vast buffet operates for long hours and continuously replenishes its stations specializing in pizza, salads, Asian foods, and sandwiches, as well as complete meals.
The Action Below Decks
While passengers transverse the ship’s carpeted interiors and admire the million dollar art collection on the walls, the city below decks never sleeps. The culinary operations manager (“The Com”) spends much of his time down here working with the kitchen foreman, and chief steward to keep things running smoothly among the many kitchens and 134 chefs, cooks, butchers, bakers, and dishwashers.
After every homeport landing, the Noordam stores approximately 350 pallets of food, beverages, and general supplies such as printed matter, china, and linen. Produce and dairy are bought on a weekly basis, dry goods and frozen are bought every two weeks, and fresh local fish is bought where possible, as is fresh local produce and fruits.
A computerized board showing the temperature of all the freezers and refrigerators as well as the thawing rooms, helps the provision master, storekeeper and six staffers keep everything organized.
Hot and cold kitchens are separated and everything is prepared in small batches to maintain freshness. Menus change every day during a particular cruise and illustrated storyboards line kitchen walls so chefs can maintain uniformity in plating. Twenty kinds of bread and 4,000 dinner rolls are baked daily in addition to hundreds of pastries, cakes, pies, cookies and chocolates. This kitchen, staffed by 13 bakers, is especially busy because of special show buffets, dessert extravaganzas, or high tea.
Garbage is dispatched in environmental secure fashion and according to Environmental Officer Tim Capel, “Holland America built the first waste treatment plant on a ship and it is more efficient that most cities. A vacuum waste system breaks down all food remains, which are dehydrated, then incinerated with all shredded dry waste and the ashes are offloaded ashore to a special garbage disposal company. Plastics and other non-burnable garbage is shredded and collected for onshore disposal. Glass is crushed and tins are turned into bricks for recycling.”
When the Noordam comes back to its homeport at the end of the cruise, its waste is offloaded, and its stores are replenished, as it gets ready to leave later the same day with 2,000 new passengers to be wined and dined in high style.
© February 2009 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.
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