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| Mediterranean Summer: A Season on France's Cote d'Azur and Italy's Costa Bella | 
 enlarge | Authors: David Shalleck, Erol Munuz
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $7.24
You Save: $5.71 (44%)
New (32) Used (13) from $5.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 51080
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 076792049X
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN: 9780767920490
ASIN: 076792049X
Publication Date: June 10, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20081121221340T
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| Customer Reviews:
 A light summer read July 24, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
David shalleck's "Mediterranean Summer: A Season on France's Cote d'Azur and Italy's Costa Bella" chronicled the author's summer adventure as a chef for a couple of superrich Italian on board the "Serenity" yacht. "Serenity" would sail from one city to another on the Italian and French coasts. The Italian couple would stay on their yacht during the weekends and the full month of August. It was challenging for him as the couple was extremely difficult to please and coming in as a foreign chef added another layer of difficulty. The readers were also introduced to some of the staff on board, and how they worked together to make it through to the next port.
This was a fun read as the author chronicled his experience serving and cooking for the "Serenity" owners. There were ups and downs but mostly it was a good learning experience for the young chef. I also enjoyed that the author added some personal information about himself at the beginning of the book which helped me to understand where he was coming from. In addition, it was also helpful that the author included recipes at the end of the book for his readers. Good summer read!
Can't decide what's more delicious: the travel or the food August 16, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
David Shalleck had cooked in a number of noted American restaurants. But like any cook worth his knives, he wanted to be a chef. He needed more training, so he took a two-month gig as head chef of a London restaurant.
It was, he saw immediately, a restaurant in serious decline. But he wasn't going to be there long enough to whip it into shape --- he let it be.
Then Alice Waters --- founder of the legendary Chez Panisse restaurant and a chef who knew Shalleck --- came to dinner.
She had a terrible meal. And told Shalleck about it in detail. "Chef" means "chief," she reminded him. She left him with a question: Are you ready to be one?
Shalleck went to France for an internship in Provence. Again, he flopped. "What is in your heart, David?" the chef demanded, as she fired him. "Did you leave it at home?"
Four years of Italian apprenticeships later, David Shalleck was ready for command --- of a ship's kitchen. No ordinary ship: Serenity is a 124-foot, 150-ton schooner built in the 1930s. Its new owners --- "Il Dottore" and "La Signora" --- have just bought the boat for $5 million and spent another $3 million modernizing it. Shalleck is too discreet to give us their real names (or, for that matter, the real name of their boat), but it's clear that they are Italian billionaires who own helicopters and jets and multiple houses and have about 50 people on their personal staff. For most of the summer, they weekend on the boat; in August, they live on it. Are they exacting? Believe it.
"Mediterranean Summer" is Shalleck's account of that season cruising off France and Italy. It's not as satisfying as stepping off the chopper and onto the boat and ordering up dinner for 20 in an hour --- what is? --- but it's the best view of the "downstairs" life you're likely to read in a long time. And for a very simple reason: on a boat, everyone's pushed together. Everything's more intense.
Again, the job begins badly. La Signore asks for pate. Shalleck produces it. Which earns him a visit from the boss: "Daveed, what is this...dog food you sent us?" Ah, so "pate" means "foie gras."
The job turns Herculean: 20 for dinner Friday, lunch for 24 Saturday, cocktails for 100 Saturday night, Sunday buffet for 24. Got all that? 200 guests in one weekend. With all the food coming out of a small galley.
"Mediterranean Summer" is a satisfying travel book. It is a riveting sailing story (on a yacht, the chef is also needed on deck with the crew). It's a fascinating peek at international society and the ways of the very rich. It's a psychological thriller (will there be a mutiny? will the American chef's Italian cooking satisfy his Italian employers? ). And, most of all, it's a delicious book about food, with 26 recipes thrown in for good measure.
"Al dente linguine tossed with a touch of white wine, olive oil, garlic, fresh-chopped Italian parsley and hot red pepper flakes. Thick slices of large, pungent tomatoes dressed with a little Dijon vinaigrette. Stove-top-grilled bread, thickly sliced and drizzled with olive oil. An arugula salad."
And that, washed down with a dry, crisp Chablis, is just the crew lunch --- imagine Shalleck's descriptions of what he served his employers.
No, don't imagine. Read. And then start making his delicious meals
Passion at Sea June 3, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Mediterranean Summer is a very well written book and it brilliantly captures the beauty of the areas a luxurious yacht visited during its Mediterranean cruise. The chef has a real passion for planning and preparing interesting meals for sophisticated tastes of the owners of the yacht and their guests. Great Summer reading!
 Mediterranean Summer: A Season on France's Cote d'Azur and Italy's Costa Bella August 6, 2007
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is a fun book to read if you like cooking and travel. I especially liked it because I love that part of the world and it brought back good memories of the ports of call the ship visited. The cooking references in the book are interesting and his description on local ingredients was interesting. I also feel like I learned a little about sailing and the life styles of the rich.
Wish I was there June 18, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Thank-you David Shalleck for sharing your wonderful summer with me. I was able to come as close as I ever will to living on a yacht on the Mediterranean Sea. Shopping for local delectables and flirting with locals in every port. I enjoyed every page of it! Still wishing you could have gotten off the boat and sank your toes into the secluded coves with white beaches and shared your fabulous cuisine with somebody romantically (or did you keep that to yourself). The recipes at the end of your book are wonderful!
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