A crew preference sheet will make your life easier. We know a happy crew is more fun to be around, and
When we know a crew member is having a rough day, we can ask them to swing by the galley for a little treat. Or when we want to reward someone for always taking our trash out when we don’t get time, or for helping with washing a couple of dishes, or just for providing some good banter on long boss trips.
Likewise, we know it is important to provide a balanced diet for all crew members, taking in to account their dietary requirements due to allergies, religious reasons, and also personal reasons.
What about the difficult crew?
Having a vegan or a gluten-free crew member is not make or break for a yacht chef, so long as they know how to manage the crew members. Likewise for peanut allergies and other serious allergic reactions crew members can have from food. So long as they are reasonable about the expectations of what sort of food they will get, and don’t sneak off to eat burgers on the weekends (We all know that ONE stew who claims to be vegan onboard….) As chef’s, we don’t mind putting in the extra effort for a couple of hard-working crew members. Especially when those dishes do magically get done, and thanks are given.
To help you out, there’s a super easy crew preference sheet printable here for you to download. Throw it up in the crew mess for them to fill in every month. Or less depending on your crew turnover. It will provide you with loads of great ideas and your crew menu will practically write itself!
In my experience, the crew are less likely to fill these in when they have to attach their names to it. I have no idea why, but for that reason, it’s been done as a bit of a free-for-all. Let them all jot down their likes and dislikes and reap the benefits as your next few weeks of meal planning just got easier!
For more downloadables, check out our page Yacht Chef Tips
If you loved this crew preference sheet, share it with other chefs in your network. It’s free chef love after all.