ABOUT THIS EPISODE
"I slept with my snorkel gear every night. I thought I was going to have to swim my way out when the boat capsized." - Dean Harrison, The Yacht Chef
Dean started at 15, chopping parsley for five hours while chefs laughed at him from the back door.
He was physically assaulted in that first kitchen, called his mom crying, and quit.
A second restaurant with real mentors brought him back and reminded him why he loved cooking in the first place.
At 18 he bought a one-way ticket to Europe, ran out of money in the French Alps, and stumbled into a conversation with a yacht chef who spent every winter off because the summer pay was so good.
That was all he needed to hear.
The decade that followed is hard to summarize.
He survived a six-day South Pacific storm where two people on other boats died and the stabilizers failed on his.
He was held at gunpoint by Libyan armed forces for ten hours before the embassies got involved and they finally let the crew go.
He came out the other side of both and kept sailing.
His take: when else would a chef get to do any of this?
The hard moments are the ones he looks back on most, and the reason he started documenting everything, to show the next generation of yacht chefs what the job actually looks like, not just the glamour, but the storms and everything in between.
"I don't chase jobs for the money. I chase them for the experience and for where they take me."
