The Last of the Merlot
This and more kinda creepy art straight out of the second chakra at Art of Mark Bryan.com. Please don't take all the red wine.
Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: The Physiology of Taste (Penguin Classics)
Harold McGee: The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore
Harold McGee: On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
Anthony Bourdain: A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines
Anthony Bourdain: Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.)
Don't Try This At Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs
M.F.K. Fisher: Long Ago In France: The Years In Dijon (Destinations)
Jon Scieszka: The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
Hervé This: Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor
Michael Pollan: The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Judi Barrett: Pickles To Pittsburgh: Sequel To Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
Gordon Ramsay: Roasting in Hell's Kitchen: Temper Tantrums, F Words, and the Pursuit of Perfection
Marco Pierre White: The Devil in the Kitchen: Sex, Pain, Madness, and the Making of a Great Chef
Ronald L. Taylor: Entertaining With Insects, or: The Original Guide to Insect Cookery
Laurent Tourondel: Bistro Laurent Tourondel: New American Bistro Cooking
Mandy Aftel and Daniel Patterson: Aroma: The Magic of Essential Oils in Foods and Fragrance
Murata, Matsuhisa, Adria, and Kuma: Kaiseki: The Exquisite Cuisine of Kyoto's Kikunoi Restaurant
Didi Emmons: Entertaining for a Veggie Planet : 250 Down-to-Earth Recipes
This and more kinda creepy art straight out of the second chakra at Art of Mark Bryan.com. Please don't take all the red wine.
Yep, here is part of the motley crew in one of the construction/maintenance shops we fondly refer to as the L.O. (Logistics Office) part of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station. This was
where we dined on charred whole pig and various burgers, dogs and bbq chicken with all the fixin's.
We played darts and poker and drank beer that was kept chilled in a sled. Then had red white blue cupcakes. Americana all-round! Happy Birthday, USA!
John Bentham, whose photo graces this post, is a friend of mine and a top-notch photographer whose work spans many moods. Always rich in texture and detail, his street scenes are just as beautiful and interesting as his food photography. He doesn't give classes all that often, and there is only space for 15 students, so if you are in the New York area, take advantage of his Food Photo Workshop at Gradisca Italian Restaurant on Sunday, July 12. Details here.
This here is the insane group of people that purchased the last bits of fast food at the Midwinter Auction at the South Pole. Midwinter is on Solstice, June 21, and marks the halfway point of our season...only another 4-1/2 months to go. To celebrate, we made a ginormous dinner and the following day had a live concert and festival with putt-putt golf, tarot readings, ring toss, trivia games, and homemade beer. But the auction was a hoot. At left here you see the last Dr.
Pepper on station which took in a $20 bill. A Snickers Bar then went for $10 and the promise of 20 handmade croissants by our resident French person, Camille Parisel, went for $50.
On the right you can see the last peanut M & M's that took $3.50, forked out by Ms. Tomato. At the moment, the only chocolate at Pole aside from cooking nibs, is a box of regular old M & M's and when we say 'old' we mean it, as most of our candy and chips here are well past the 'best by' date.
But the crowning glory, the most inane buy of the evening, was surely by our own David Barud, seen above proudly holding his precious bag of Cool Ranch Doritos for which he paid...gulp....$66. Wow. For that price, we hope he at least slept with it first.
Oh the Lady with the Beatific Smile....and made over in Toast. I'nt she lovely and Who doesn't love Toast?
The Mona Lisa on Toast by Tadhiko Okawa recreated Da Vinci's Mona Lisa ... from pieces of burnt toast. Okawa creates these edible works by etching the picture on aluminum foil, wrapping each piece of toast in a section of foil, cuting out the design, then toasting it in a horizontal toaster.
Also at Ripley's...President Obama...in Gumballs. Maybe later.
From Personal Projects -- Extraordinary Works from Ordinary Objects. The World of Ripley's Believe-it-or-not. New York, Black Dog and Levinthal Publishers, 1999, p. 100.
Mark Weekly, who works with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), recently had a birthday at the South Pole. We like to make a big deal of anniversaries, since there aren't too many events to be had down here with no reminders of outside holidays or special events. Whatever excitement happens, it's all made up, homespun, and down to our little group, and odds are, with 43 of us, there will be a birthday every week or two...whoopee!
Mark won the pingpong pancake championship a few weeks ago and is on the fire team - thus the cake decor. The cake was 6 layers high and weighed 35 pounds, baked and built by Chef Francis, grinning here.
In our little hive on an ice sheet here, we have a gym, a screening room, a pool table, a library and an arts&crafts room. That's about it. One cannot come here and hope to be taken care of and entertained. One must come with the idea of taking care of things themselves and creating their own fun. So first-timers here tend to end up either very disappointed, or very resourceful and creative.
Ms. Tomato grew up locked in her bedroom most of her youth (not her choice) and had a good deal of early training in the ways of self-amusement. Therefore we like to think of ourselves in the latter group. When Cinco de Mayo showed its face this year, around the same time South Pole Greenhouse Farmer Joe presented us with a large baggie of fresh jalapenos, a plot virtually hatched itself.
Here you see big doings at the South Pole - two sturdy science nerds attempting to outdo each other in a Jalapeno Eating Competition. Dr. Erik, who oversees science this winter, (photo #1 at above right) won with a total of 20 raw jalapenos, a mixture of red and green, which he ate like so many apples.
Runner up Ross, left, who is a cosmologist with the South Pole Telescope project, didn't fare quite as easily..after choking down 13 exclusively green peppers, he looked so green himself we ran for a bucket. No loss of points for giving up the goods, however, as the wave passed, 'though he did offer a few large burps.
Happy times, happy times.
We have sunk into deep winter here at the Pole. The above photo-herald of what is no longer to come is a collection of the very last carrots on our little island in the snow. We divided them up among the 43 of us and ate them.
Notice the trimmed ends which had to be amputated due to rot…a scene reminiscent of the film Soylent Green where Charlton Heston’s daddy brings out a precious, limp couple of raw vegetables as his last meal before voluntarily becoming a grocery store biscuit.
Although ambient temperatures have not yet hit the –100 F mark, they are hovering and, with windchill, outdoors are often around –120 F. Photo at side shows Chef Keith organizing our exterior refrigerator, specifically the bread and dough shelf. Behind him are stores of potato product, and Ms. Tomato, in the photographer’s p.o.v., leans on a box of diced carrots and peas, part of the mound of brick-frozen vegetables we avail ourselves of on a daily basis.
In an effort to drink a chilled cocktail, Erin here placed her vodka in a snowdrift, in the firm belief that a high-alcohol liquid such as this cannot freeze. Indeed. It is solid as a rock after an hour or so. Vodkasicle, and inaccessible at that. Let this be a warning.
Here at the South Pole, we keep our vegetables on the outdoor deck. This is the famous Asian Mix, a combination of once-living flora that has by now spent most of life in temperatures between 20 and 100 below zero Farenheit. Currently close to 100 below. When these greens fall on the ground, they shatter like glass...and straight out of the bag they stick together in freeform sculpture like the one seen here.
And, for your information, we are tough enough characters that we go out there to rescue the vegies wearing only our cotton chef's whites. And leather gloves. Brisk!
Artist Liz Hickok once again wows with her architectural Jello sculptures, this time a series of Whitehouse pieces resplendent in shades of fruit. See more on her website here.
Well, we must amuse ourselves somehow. This fine New Zealand egg came to us before we were stranded on Valentine's Day. He arrived with his sweet little tuft of hair, begging for a face. And Chef Francis gave it to him.
A weekend in Antarctic terms means Sunday off. Saturday night we celebrated 25 hours of freedom with a party in the Logistics Office, which is a loose term for a building that houses cranes, and all manner of ropes, electrical equipment, and beaten up sofas. A strictly BYOB affair, the catered food included jalapeno poppers and hot dogs recently discovered on the berms that have a rather mature date of
expiration.
The cult cocktail this season seems to be Crown and Coke. It may have something to do with the dearth of choices in mixers (no Tonic) as well as spirits, as one makes do in the best style available. At least our diet isn't beef suet porridge and gutrot rum as in the days of old... circa 1911. And we have central heating.
On Sunday the crew was so elated at receiving
an extra hour of sleep that Camille made crepes for passersby as Chef Francis assisted Weeks (real name) in making bagels. A Looney Tunes marathon carried on in the screening room. Boyd geared up
to teach a fly-fishing lesson in the gym.
The dark descended quite suddenly during the past week and we spotted the first two visible stars off the back deck where our frozen vegetables sit. The atmosphere on the ice is most definitely moody...and the lighting very conducive to sleeping. And soup.
Red Red Wine
Neil Diamond: Neil Diamond - The Greatest Hits (1966-1992)
Abatoir Blues
Nick Cave: Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys
Salad Forest
All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors: Turning Into Small
The Muffin Man
Ella Fitzgerald: Pure Ella: The Very Best of Ella Fitzgerald
Chili Sauce
Louis Prima: Capitol Collectors Series: Louis Prima
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