Harrietts Tomato

Food on Ice - Cooking on Antarctica, Again

Ms. Tomato is back on The Ice, this time headed for a field camp on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS Divide).  To prepare her for three months of sleeping in a tent in sub-zero temperatures, she was sent to survival school, also known as Happy Camper.  The experience was not always Happy, but it was most informative and appreciated.

The above photo is a full view of our outdoor kitchen, one that served 20 campers, all of us living outdoors for 30 hours or so with camping gear, dehydrated meals, and chocolate bars.  It took quite some time to boil snow, but we were lucky to have sunny skies, little wind, and a relatively warm temperature of 8 degrees F.  Not a lot of REM actually took place, but now we know what we are in for.

The WAIS Divide field camp is not quite as rustic as this.  There is an actual kitchen in place with a Wolf Range, and a tented dining room with indoor heat.  Staff will, however, sleep in ground tents with a lot of heavy-duty sleeping bags and a hot water bottle for warmth.  Should be a good time.

Alaska Salmon: Fodder for Everything

Four months in a kitchen on the Kvichak River in Alaska exposed Ms. Tomato to more salmon fillets than anyone needs in a lifetime.  These vibrant creatures want nothing more than to mate and proliferate and that, of course, attracts opportunists -- namely the bear and human fishing communities.  The difference is the bear gets a free lunch while the humans pay up to $8000/week for it. 

Alaska is a gorgeous wilderness though, with a clipped tourist season bracketed by extreme weather, a cook at a lodge may see it mainly through windows.  Nevertheless, it's a great view. 

Ms. Tomato was flown out a couple of times during the four-month season at the Alaska Sportsman's Lodge to see first-hand the bears and the people who fish.  Food is such an interesting lens through which to experience little worlds.  We are still attempting to figure out the cult of catching beautiful, erotically-charged water creatures, taking a picture of them, measuring their girth and length, then letting them go. 

And we may have just answered our own question.

Very Little Food Involved But Please Read Anyway

This is the cover that encases Ms. Tomato's recent article about life at The South Pole.  Heralding "Cold as Ice, Surviving The South Pole" on the frontpiece, the article inside is called LESS THAN ZERO.  Please purchase the magazine and read the piece - it's about the hot, capable, rocking women that work and winter at the coldest, driest, loneliest part of the planet.   

Ms. Tomato would provide a direct link, but as she is currently in Antarctica working for the US Antarctic Program and they block words like "bust" on the internet, so she cannot access the magazine online herself.  The tomato has been sanitized.

Painting with Ham and Salami

Carl Warner creates and photographs landscapes made of food, including this sweeping vista made entirely of charcuterie.  Ms. Tomato has come out of her long silence to champion this brave soul who clearly is the recipient of a trust fund.  His book, Carl Warner's Food Landscapes, is available on Amazon UK. The Brit is also developing a children's show that will use foodscapes as its medium.

He may, just perhaps, be the perfect man.