{"id":8696,"date":"2011-07-06T01:12:58","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T08:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=8696"},"modified":"2011-07-06T01:12:58","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T08:12:58","slug":"van-staden-brothers-celebrity-cruises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=8696","title":{"rendered":"Van Stadens…Celebrities of Celebrity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four years ago, Celebrity<\/a> hired Jacques Van Staden as its Vice-President of Food & Beverage Operations. He was just 36, a rising star in the culinary world (nominated as such by the prestigious James Beard Foundation<\/a>), and eager to make his mark on what the general population considers fine dining.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On the Celebrity Eclipse<\/a>, a chef named Van Staden was introduced in the Atrium one day, and we soon discovered his name was not Jacques, but Michael (right). He is the younger brother and also works for Celebrity. His title is “Traveling Executive Chef” which means he is often found on cruise ships implementing big brother’s new creations.<\/p>\n

It’s a tough job but\u2026<\/p>\n

Actually, the roots of cooking the Van Staden way were<\/em> tough.<\/p>\n

“Our grandmother was Italian,” explains Michael. “She grew up in Italy and met my grandfather during World War II. They had seven children, one of them our mother, and they moved to South Africa after the war. We grew up there and I remember if we wanted to go out and play, we often couldn’t because we had to go help Grandma peels potatoes. Some people don’t know how to cook an egg, but we just learned how to do a lot of things.”<\/p>\n

Having served in the South African army, Jacques (below) sold his car and moved to the U.S. with $50 in his pocket. His sister Angelique was friends with the South African \"\"<\/a>ambassador’s family, which put him up and got him a job cutting lawns at the embassy in Washington. One day, the chef was sick.<\/p>\n

“Let me in there,” said Jacques, who studied at L’Academie de Cuisine<\/a> in Washington only because a mentor there agreed to let him make a deposit and work off his tuition.<\/p>\n

A job under a famous chef, the late Jean-Louis Palladin, at the Watergate Hotel followed and he was on the way to working around the world and earning the six-figure salary he now commands.<\/p>\n

Michael?<\/p>\n

“I wanted to go to cooking school,” he remembers. “Jacques said: ‘Are you sure you want to do it? It’s a lot of work. If you want to, then come over, but it’s not easy. It’s not going to be sunshine and roses.’ He was right. My brother Peter and I went to the same school in Washington, five years after Jacques did, it took about one year, and it was a lot of work\u202618-hour days, then sleeping on flour bags when there were double shifts.”<\/p>\n

Today, from a home base in Sacramento, Michael spends about two months at a time on Celebrity ships. He is married to Raquel, whom he married when she was a sous chef for pastry at Alize, a renowned Las Vegas restaurant.<\/p>\n

Peter, who is Jacques’ twin, is also a chef.<\/p>\n

“He lives in Las Vegas and has a company that does a lot of canapes for Mandalay Bay<\/a>, among other hotels,” says Michael.<\/p>\n

And Angelique, their sister?<\/p>\n

“She cannot cook,” laughs Michael. “She hates cooking.”<\/p>\n

Tomorrow: The Van Staden influence on Celebrity ships.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four years ago, Celebrity hired Jacques Van Staden as its Vice-President of Food & Beverage Operations. He was just 36, a rising star in the culinary world (nominated as such by the prestigious James Beard Foundation), and eager to make his mark on what the general population considers fine dining. On the Celebrity Eclipse, a… Continue reading Van Stadens…Celebrities of Celebrity<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,19,15],"tags":[71,276,138,451,536,231,652,653,405],"class_list":["post-8696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","category-ships","category-stories","tag-celebrity","tag-celebrity-chefs","tag-celebrity-cruises","tag-celebrity-eclipse","tag-cooking-on-ships","tag-dining-on-ships","tag-jacques-van-staden","tag-restaurant-menus","tag-restaurants","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}