Masterchief 1967. I guess most of you have watched Masterchief on TV? Well I have a winner for 1967. No, it is not me but one Aboud Yasin abu Shama, a Palestinian from Nablus, on the West Bank, Israel. Let me tell you how this came to pass.
 After leaving South Africa and returning to England I joined Collins Submarine Pipelines, an American company owned by a mad Texan called Sammy Collins who also dredged diamonds from the sea [but that’s another story]. He had this major operation based upon Ras al Khafji, in the Neutral Zone, sandwiched between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. [It’s where the First Gulf War kicked off.]
Anyway Sammy secured the operation of a small fleet of Saudi offshore vessels from Hansa, a German company, and he appointed me to command a ship named after a princess called “Sarah”. I had the best crew ever, all Arab, The cook/chief steward was Aboud and, as it turned out would have easily gained the title had the programme been around at the time. He had been trained in the French cuisine in the Lebanon at the height of that country’s sojourn as the playground of the Middle East. He mastered that.  He added the richness of Lebanese cooking. He moved to Kuwait with the advent of another war and then secured a job with Hansa, the major German shipping outfit, and gained the robust German cooking and then British cooking in Kuwait. He was the complete cook, no, not cook, Chef.
He was a great guy, nobody, but nobody could cook fish better than this guy. We were contracted to support the French Drilling Company and they just loved to ensure that they had a meal on board. So I guess that I am right to state that he was my Masterchief 1967.
There is another nice twist to this story. Aboud was married and had a little son. They were still in Nablus, the town taken by Israel in the 6-Day War. He could not write to them from an Arab country such as Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, and they could not write back, a sad state of affairs. So Tina had the solution - Aboud sent his letter to Tina who then put it in another envelope and mailed it to Israel. Aboud’s wife would then reverse the process sending a letter to Tina who put it another envelope and sent it to Saudi Arabia. It was surprisingly effective as the mail was so much better then.
Tina did eventually get to meet Aboud in London when I was on my way to another adventure, a story for another time. I’ll try and find the picture of Tina and the boys with Aboud in Trafalgar Square.
Unfortunately we have lost touch but I did bump into him some years later in Dubai and he was working for J.Ray MacDermott as a Chief Steward on a massive lay-barge so I guess Cajun cooking is also in his repertoire.! Yup, a real master chef.

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