Aboard the Westerdam

Seven days, 4 pounds. That was the damage done aboard the Westerdam on a weeklong culinary cruise to Alaska, even though I worked out in the gym almost every day.

Claire Walter/Travel Arts Syndicate (ENLARGE)

Participants in the hands-on class given at the Westerdam's Culinary Arts Center prepared -- and consumed -- three dishes: two salmon entrees and one dessert.

Claire Walter/Travel Arts Syndicate (ENLARGE)

Plating Grilled Salmon with Ginger Cilantro Pesto on Sauteed Watercress begins with a decorative frame, followed by the sauteed greens and finally the salmon.

CLAIRE WALTER/Travel Arts Syndicate (ENLARGE)

The Westerdam is shown at anchor in Sitka, Alaska, with tender service ferrying passengers between ship and shore. Its culinary cruise also offered two demonstration classes.

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I've long wanted to cook with a star chef, and I figured the cruise would be like watching the Food Network, live, while sailing past calving glaciers, breaching whales, wheeling seabirds and spruce-flanked mountains seemingly rising straight from the sea. Those are the reasons that super-scenic southeast Alaska ranks as one of the world's most prized cruise destinations.

Since I had been to southeast Alaska four times before, my primary motivation was the opportunity to cook a little, to watch cooking and to eat. My husband's was decompressing on a cruise. It was just as well that sun-kissed scenery was not a priority for us, because we signed on for the last sailing of the 2006 Alaska season, and the weather was dismal.

We sailed straight from Seattle up to Glacier Bay, which we admired despite the mist, rain and wind. We went for a hike alongside the Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau in a drizzle and wandered the narrow streets of Alaska's capital in a downpour. We flew in a floatplane through low clouds from Ketchikan to Neets Bay, where viewing black bears is practically guaranteed, but no bears showed up as we huddled under a small shelter in torrential rain.

After a boat trip to view Sitka Sound's wildlife, we went to the Alaska Raptor Center, where injured bald eagles and other raptors are rehabilitated. Then we visited the town's lovely little Russian Orthodox church and walked along the foggy shore past the old Russian bishops' residence to the Sheldon Jackson Museum, filled with regional artifacts, and the Sitka National Historical Park, with its splendid collection of totem poles. Only on the last afternoon of the cruise, when we stopped in Victoria, British Columbia, did we see the sun.

The culinary component was two demonstration classes by guest chef Aarón Sanchez and one hands-on class with Marcus van Santen, chef at the upscale Pinnacle Grill, the ship's dinner-only restaurant.

Most one-week Holland America Line culinary cruises schedule a minimum of two demonstration classes (no charge) and two or three participation classes ($29 each). On some, tours of local markets are also available. Classes take place in the Culinary Arts Center, a theater-style venue with two large plasma screens displaying overhead and close-up videos of the food preparation.

The name Aarón Sanchez might ring a bell as co-host of the Food Network's "Melting Pot." This young chef, once named by People magazine as one of the year's most beautiful people, runs New York's Paladar and Atlantic City, N.J.'s Mixx, both contemporary Latin restaurants.

When he introduces himself and his food philosophy to a class, El Paso, Texas-born Sanchez emotes with Latin passion about his craft and lovingly pays homage to his grandmother, a gifted home cook, and his mother, a restaurateur and authority on Mexican cuisine.

Young Aarón worked with his mother at Marimba Cafe in New York (she now runs Zarela Restaurant, a Mexican mainstay in Midtown Manhattan), then formally studied culinary arts at Johnson & Wales.

On my cruise, Sanchez prepared two recipes during each of his two hourlong classes. The first featured Papaya Glazed Shrimp With Red Pepper Vinaigrette and Scallop Seviche, and the second, Pumpkin Soup With Canela Crème Fresca and Grilled Mahi-Mahi With Tomatillo Mango Salsa.

Like any chef, or even an experienced home cook, he fielded the small logistical curves thrown his way. His seviche recipe called for sea scallops, but because they were unavailable onboard, he used bay scallops. The four red peppers, diced and juiced, for his red pepper vinaigrette recipe weren't to be had either, so he substituted tomato juice.

With no grill available, he sautéed the shrimp. And the Culinary Arts Center's electric cooktop wasn't as responsive as the gas burners he is accustomed to on a professional range, but he managed — even though one of the four burners wasn't functioning, either.

There was as much to be learned from seeing him cope with these obstacles as there would have been if everything had gone perfectly. And the sample portions served to the audience afterward tasted as if everything indeed had.

Sanchez played to packed houses, and the audience's questions reflected cumulative decades, perhaps centuries, of kitchen experience but not a lot of familiarity with Latin cuisine and ingredients. He talked enthusiastically about different kinds of chiles, lemons and limes; about what tomatillos are (a distant relative of the tomato but with a papery outer skin); and, mainly, about his appreciation of home cooking and about his comfortable melding of traditional Mexican and Asian ingredients.

His presentation and his recipes made me eager for the hands-on class, and I was thrilled to score the last of the 12 slots. My classmates were all experienced cooks who, like me, wanted to get their hands on food.

Chef van Santen, an earnest young German who began his culinary studies at age 14, divided us into three teams of four — one each assigned to the Grilled Salmon With Ginger-Cilantro Pesto on Sautéed Watercress, the Salmon Baked in Phyllo With Shiitake Mushrooms and Champagne Sauce, and for dessert, the huckleberry cobbler.

We were supplied with paper hats and one-size-fits-no-one disposable gloves. I was tasked with preparing the pesto, and because I have small hands, I kept cutting into the fingertips of my gloves as I was chopping the cilantro and green onions, so I was the first to get rid of them. My teammates and then my classmates and finally the chef were relieved to do so, too.

We prepped and we mixed and we cooked and we tasted — and we adapted. The pesto needed more cilantro, the cobbler, more spices, and the phyllo "packages" encasing the salmon-mushroom assembly needed a lot of TLC before they were put into the oven.

Later in the week, the Grilled Salmon With Ginger-Cilantro Pesto that I had helped prepare appeared on the menu in the Vista, the ship's main dining room. Of course, I ordered it. The version we cooked in class was better. Perhaps that is because we used a finer salmon from chef van Santen's upmarket Pinnacle Grill or because pan-to-plate was faster for a dozen than for several hundred or because we were able to taste and tailor.

Holland America cooks are not permitted to do that. All dishes are designed by the corporate chef in Seattle, with no margin for creativity in the galley. This is understandable because otherwise it would be impossible to serve some 8,000 meals a day to more than 1,900 passengers. Therefore, cooks must precook and reheat many items. They do a very good job in terms of quantity and variety, especially considering the need to appeal to a base line of simple tastes and many passengers' special dietary needs for religious or medical reasons.

As a result of these constraints, however, the food tastes good but not spectacular. The studied consistency and intentional absence of the onboard chefs' and cooks' personal input gave the meals a robotic quality. When every recipe is developed and even the presentation is designed in a distant corporate kitchen, it's like eating in a chain restaurant, day after day.

Oddly, this is true even in the Pinnacle Grill, an elegant space with Frette linens, Bulgari china, Riedel stemware and stylish flatware. The dinner was lovely and perfectly served in a fairly intimate setting, but I couldn't get past the notion that every dish, even there, was designed in Seattle. Chef van Santen's name did not even appear on the menu.

I asked one of the Dutch officers about this food by rote, and after he told me about the company's insistence on consistency so that each ship serves the same dishes the same way cruise after cruise, he confided that a couple of times a week, he eats in the Indonesian crew dining room. If I had the chance, I'd slip down there now and again as well.

Claire Walter is the author of "Culinary Colorado," a food-oriented guidebook, and maintains a culinary Web site at www.culinary-colorado.com.

IF YOU GO

Culinary cruises

Worldwide, Holland America has booked 40 guest chefs, wine authorities and cookbook authors on 2007 cruises. Eight ships are scheduled for 156 departures during the 2007 Alaska cruise season. Guest food and wine experts include Ken Oringer, chef at Clio, Boston, aboard the Statendam, May 3-20 (trans-Pacific plus Alaska); Philip Mihalski, executive chef of Nell's, Seattle, aboard the Amsterdam, June 8-15; Pichet Ong, pastry chef of Pong, New York City, aboard the Noordam, July 1-8; Peter Marks, wine director of Copia, Napa, Calif., aboard the Oosterdam, July 28-Aug. 4; Bruce Sherman, chef and partner of North Pond, Chicago, aboard the Ryndam, Aug. 5-12; and Nick Malgieri, pastry chef and cookbook author, aboard the Zaandam, Aug. 22-29. Guest chef biographies are available at www.hollandamerica.com/signatureofexcellence/culinaryartsschedule.do.

This season, the Westerdam is not scheduled for Alaska sailings, but sister ships are. They range in size from the Statendam and Ryndam, carrying 1,258 passengers each, to the behemoths Zuiderdam, Oosterdam and Noordam, each holding around 1,900 passengers. Intermediate in size, the Amsterdam, Volendam and Zaandam each carry around 1,400 guests.

Holland America ships follow four different seven-day Alaska itineraries that include the Inside Passage. Trips start at $899 per person, double occupancy, for an inside cabin. Budget watchers should ask about special offers, which start as low as $699 per person for seven days. Outside cabins, veranda cabins and veranda suites are progressively more expensive.

Included are three-plus meals a day in the Lido self-service eatery and Vista table-service restaurant; entertainment; culinary demonstrations and other classes; and use of the pool, fitness center, library and other onboard facilities. Alcoholic beverages, gratuities, port fees, shore excursions, spa services and such are additional.

Information

Holland America Line's Web site, www.hollandamerica.com, offers abundant information on specific ships and their sailing schedules. Consult a cruise specialist before booking, especially if you are a first-time cruiser.