Between her Latin-fused Food Network show Viva Daisy! and book signings, Daisy Martinez is a busy woman.
Just two weeks after graduating from the French Culinary Institute, she landed a gig with PBS' Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen as a prep-kitchen chef.
A meeting with Rachael Ray and a cruise ship invitation later and now she's part of Celebrity Cruise Lines' Savor Your Destination initiative. Each cruise features a
prominent chef that hosts a series of meals, cook-offs, and events.
Martinez
says she was one of those people who was dubious about the whole
cruise experience. Her
first featured ports of call included Rome, Naples,
and Croatia. She hosted about four to five events, including a
three-course dinner for more than 200 people. The ship's Tuscan Grille made the entire menu
from her recipes. She also had her skills tested with a Top Chef-style
cook-off against Celebrity's chefs, with cruisers serving as sous chefs.
Cramped kitchen space? Not at all. She compared Celebrity's
kitchen to the equivalent of four New York City restaurant kitchens. "I
was blown away that it was so spacious."
Since Martinez
played host only during the sea days, she got to enjoy the ports of call just
like everyone else. Accompanied by two Celebrity chefs in Rome,
Martinez recalls her favorite meal as pasta with tomato sauce and bits
of pork and fried artichoke. She also had a dense ricotta cheesecake
from a guy who worked his way up from dishwasher to chef. "It was beautiful. Citrus-scented," she said.
Martinez
also encountered bees on the hams in Rome, which apparently made it
"special" -- according to the market vendors. Mind you, the hams had
large holes in them.
In Croatia, she had mussels in a light tomato broth. The town Dubrovnik reminded her of a step back in time.
For
Martinez's second cruise with Celebrity in December, she is going in
with an open mind. Many of the ports of call on the 11-day journey,
which is to Latin America and the Caribbean, she has never visited.
Of Puerto-Rican heritage, Martinez says, "Latin food is sexy." Ceviche? "Wow, that's kinda hot."
Also
hot, but for different reasons, was her invitation on Emeril
Lagasse's show for a segment on tamales. She could choose to invite four
guests, but she received a call that two of the guests names sounded
"too ethnic" for the show.
"I've never heard from anyone from his
camp, nothing at all, not 'I'm sorry.' My feeling was, as a colleague,
you don't let something like that happen, you don't let that happen to
anybody," she said.
Martinez leaves aboard the Celebrity Equinox
on December 12; however, she won't be in South Florida for long -- she'll have
it brought to her.
After the cruise, she's flying to Tampa with Joe's Stone Crab legs for her mother and father.
"That's like the funky side of Miami," she said.
When
she's not cooking, her absolute favorite guilty pleasure is chicarron --
deep-fried pork belly, which she jokes warrants a blood test
afterward.
Latin food "is like a language everyone understands -- while it's ethnic, it's not alien," Martinez said.
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