Photo: Instagram
She licked and microwaved the steaks?!
By Leah Scher — Written on Jul 07, 2019
Bravo television network has a reality TV show called Below Deck Mediterranean that first aired in May of 2016. This year, the franchise’s follows nine members of a crew who live and work aboard a 150-foot yacht. Each episode features a new group of elite passengers journeying through the Mediterranean, presenting a different set of challenges for the crew. On this past Monday night’s episode, chef Mila Kolomeitseva was let go. Who is Mila Kolomeitseva and what did she do to warrant being fired?
1. She’s the first-ever female chef in franchise history.
Mila was born in Siberia and formerly worked as a professional poker player. According to her resume, she trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, a hospitality and culinary school that teaches the art of French cuisine. Her behavior on the show is a terrible reflection of their expertise.
2. Soon after boarding the ship, she came down with food poisoning.
Apparently, throughout the episode she was popping in and out of crew meetings and pre-charter preparations to go vomit. That’s a red flag for the quality of the yacht’s food itself, all Kolomeitseva’s other culinary flaws aside…
3. She tried to serve guests on this thousands-of-dollars cruise $2 ranch dressing, canned vegetables, and microwaved steaks.
Yes, on camera, she appeared to lick (although the video is blurry and she might have just been smelling them but either way, ew) some raw steaks. She also tried to serve guests nachos topped with jarred salsa and canned corn, which crew captain Sandy Yawn found “very disturbing.” Yawn said in an in-episode interview that she originally assumed that the tacos were for the crew and not the guests. Aesha Scott, the second stew, asked Kolomeitseva before taking the dish out, “Are you going to put cheese on this or something?” Eventually, chief stewardess Hannah Ferrier refused to serve the plate, saying, “In nine years of yachting, I’ve never refused to take a dish out. But I just cannot serve that to guests. It’s disgusting.”
4. She’s not going to give up, though.
After this kind of stunt, I’m honestly impressed with her perseverance. Kolomeitseva said in an interview, “Of course it makes me feel awful. People like me who have big egos sometimes have to be put down to earth a little bit. But it makes me feel like I want to work even harder.” Despite having to work extra to cover for Kolomeitseva, the crew was glad to see her go. “Don’t let the gangway hit you on the way out,” Ferrier tweeted.
Leah Scher is an ENFP finishing her degree at Brandeis University. She's an alumna of the Kenyon Review Young Writer's Workshop the Iowa Young Writers' Studio. She's passionate about Judaism, poetry, film, satire, astrology, spirituality, and sexual health.