Workings Towards a Sustainable South Pole

The simple act of growing your own food in your backyard is a means towards becoming self-sufficient and sustainable. When in isolation is it is inherent to provide a communities food needs (i.e., vitamins, nutrients, etc.) via local gardens and farms. It's not like we can just drive a mile down the road to the local super market and grab a $1 bag of cilantro for tonight's salsa. When the summer crew left, they left us with a jam-packed greenhouse for Dr. Greenthumb to take care of. We've been delighted with lots of bok choi, bib lettuce, cucumbers, basil, and much more. Now that we have been munching away at what was grown a couple months ago, Dr. G has organized a list of seeds that community members and the galley can choose to plant. My request was simple... habaneros, onions, tomato, and cilantro. One of the first things I do in the mornings after I crawl out of my cave (yes, I have built a cave in my room) is journey to the greenhouse to spur serotonin production in my brain and rid of all that sleepy melatonin. Under all the light, the retina sends light messages via CNS to pineal gland, which in turn activates chemical processes in the brain that tell the body it's time to wake up. Light is the best alarm clock in waking up.

Asian melons.

Leafy greens.

Bok choi.

Tomatoes.

Cucumbers = pickles.

Cilantro :)

Then it's time to get to work. Baking is wicked.

Roux for gravy... I was feeling a Southern breakfast... u know, biscuits and gravy, chicken fried steak, sausage, bacon, eggs, and grits.

Gravy.

Chicken fried steak. Take your leftover steak, rub in some seasoned flour, then in an egg-cream bath, back into the flour, let is sit for 15 on a rack and deep fry for just a minute.

Bambabino.

Crushed walnut and raisin Danish pastries.

I've ate about 8 so far.

I was liking the colour of breakfast; vibrant and fresh.

On the hot line it reminded me of some good ol' country cookin.

By the end of the day Chef Fran had gone through a bunch of avocados for some guacamole and the seeds were preserved to be planted sometime in the future, hence the rebirth cycle of fruits and veggies at the South Pole. Nothing is wasted here.

Fun Breakfasts

After three weeks of being in the South Pole kitchen I am getting the flow of things. Everyday I come into work around 2 AM to give myself a few hours to get some fresh baking done. Breakfast is 6-8 AM. In two weeks I will start producing dinners, which means my schedule will basically switch by 8 hours. This morning I woke up, wondered up the stairs in a dead quiet hallway, and made some blueberry muffins.

Took a break to see what's happening outside.

Cleaned up the dining room, ate a few muffins, and found that the dog had brought in the newspaper. Wait a minute... where the heck did this come from?

Then I got rockin on some banana bread pudding.

Prior to baking, let the bread soak in the cream-egg mix for 15 min.

Meanwhile, I got some onions frying.

Cut up a bit of lamb and tomato, grabbed olives and feta, mixed eggs and cream together... I was thinkin a Greek Quiche made with lamb and feta, eh? You can see the bread puddings soaking in the back.

I threw all the quiche fillers together in the skillet for a few minutes.

I had made my New Orleans Beignet (ben-yay) dough the night before and all I had to do was roll it, cut into squares and deep fry. I've never done a beignet before, here's my first one... delicious.


How about dozens more.

Here's the finale of the Greek quiche.

Here's the finale of the banana bread pudding. Next time I'll use more liquid and top it with some cinnamon, but it was still really sweet and good.

Our fruit is starting to turn so I'm making big fruit bowls every morning. Fresh fruit smoothies are a hit too. Good news is that we've wasted next to nothing. We all know that when the boxed freshies go, they're gone for at least 8 months, so we're all chowing down on the fresh stuff.

I love my job.

Canada and Hockey

See, one of my first mass production cooking jobs was being a grill chef at the Memorial Center in Peterborough, Ontario. I cooked for every hockey game they had in the '07-'08 winter season. Mexican salsa burgers, BBQ and bacon burgers, veggie burgers, etc... a few hundred in just a couple hours. I saw how important hockey was to their culture... Canada and hockey go together like peas and carrots. From the awesome fights to the lakes of ice, Canadian hockey is like none other.