Lexie Nelson had no culinary experience before working on the Schooner Manitou in Traverse City, now she’s the ship’s chef, reports 9 and 19 News.
Novice chef
Living by water has a lot of benefits. Imagine living on a ship for five months out of the year, now imagine it’s your job. Lexie Nelson is a chef and she lives where she works this year on the Schooner Manitou in Traverse City, Michigan.
Lexie has been daring with her dreams and direct about going after them. She is originally from outside of Denver, Colorado and was studying to become a math teacher in college before she ever knew the Manitou existed.
As her studies went on she slowly started to realize that teaching math wasn’t her claim to fame.
She commented, “Honestly, I started failing classes. At that point I had to be honest with my dad and say, ‘I’m kind of wasting your money.’ That was rough, but my dad is actually the reason I got into this.”
Enrollment in the crew
After deciding that she needed a change, Lexie’s father suggested she join the crew at a boat a friend of his had in Traverse City, the Manitou.
The woman’s name was Cheyenne and she gladly took Lexie on board as a deckhand. Lexie spent her first season as a deckhand, and returned for a second season as second mate.
She was halfway through her season as second mate when the chef on board quit, suddenly. Lexie took on cooking for the remainder of the season, and fell in love with it, so much so that she decided to return to Colorado to attend a culinary program.
During her time in school, Lexie was immersed in not just cooking but where food comes from. She was able to work on farms, in grow houses and butcheries.
Day-to-day Chores
Lexie wakes up at 4:30 am on a workday. She fires up the stove at 5:00 am and starts percolating the coffee.
She serves a soft breakfast for guests on the main deck while preparing the full breakfast below in the kitchen. After breakfast Lexie is responsible for feeding the crew lunch and then making dinner as well.
She meticulously plans out meals for the week and grocery shops all the items she needs on her own.
It takes a lot of guts to realize a dream and then to take steps to execute it, no matter what that looks like, or how intimidating it may be. Lexie heads to Key West to work on a crew this Fall during Manitou’s off season.
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Source: 9 and 10 News
