Harrietts Tomato

Sausages on the Streets of Bangkok

Ms. Tomato left the South Pole a month ago and has been wandering around the world on her own, getting lost in the crowd.  Above, a sample of Bangkok street food.  Next actual post will include bits and bobs  from New Delhi, India, and its environs.  Meanwhile, a young vendor of Bangkok street food, below.

Sunrise Dinner at the South Pole

Sunrise at the South Pole on the Equinox is an auspicious event after six months of darkness flanked with a few weeks of somber twilight.  It's gorgeous, glorious, and something to be wildly celebrated.  

Naturally we throw a big dinner.  The community of 43 souls on station voted for their preferred menu and Indian Food won, with Beef Wellington coming in second.  So, we served both.

At left is the appetizer table offering pakoras, samosas, and baguette toasts with dips: romesco, tapenade, stilton and arugula pesto. 
Note cheesy paper pineapples, yet, for us after months on end of no fresh flowers, plants, or chirpy birds, it was utterly delightful.

The little yellow balls in a bowl on the right are fresh cherry tomatoes from our greenhouse.  It was mostly a beer and wine night, but we also made pitchers of gin sours and mango lassi.

The main buffet held 12 warm food items, among them lamb biryiani, saag paneer, chicken tandoori, dahl, vegetable coconut curry, and beef wellington with red wine raisin sauce.

For dessert, we all shuffled back to the play room, also called B-1, to Open Mike night for the musicians on station...or any one who wanted to be one.  For dessert, sweet ginger rice pudding, just like at a restaurant!  Except we haven't seen one of those for eight months.  Another five or six weeks to go before we descend upon Christchurch, New Zealand, and raid the pantry.

South Pole Food Winter 1960-61

This is food at the South Pole two stations ago.  Currently this station sits under a good 20 feet of snow and ice crystals that are crushing the roof, making it unsafe to visit.  Just this winter the entrance was filled in so as not to tempt spelunkers. 

From what we gather, there were no females at the South Pole station until sometime in the 1970's.  That winter the station doctor was the sole woman.  This was the bar, clearly, of the early 60's, and Schlitz was the drink, apparently in generous quantities.

Red meat, a tradition at the Pole.

The Reality of Cooking at the South Pole: Not So Pretty

Yeah, Ms. Tomato bears a fierce resemblance to her grandmother here.  And she's dead.  Behind is the exit to our outdoor deck/food freezer.  Francis and MS. T  have been foraging for goods to serve the peeps.  The zombie effect comes from working long and arduous hours in the dark.  We are, actually, becoming newts.

July 4th at The South Pole

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!

 

Birthday Cakes at 90 Degrees South..Not Yer Average Cake

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.

How Amusement Turns to Masochism When There is Nowhere to Go

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.

How Vegetables Behave at 100 Below Zero

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!

Weekend at the South Pole in Pictures

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.

Return to Pole 2009

Ms.  Tomato has been invited to return to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to work as the 2009 winterover sous-chef.  In fact, as you read this, she is boarding a plane bound for the bottom of the planet.

What does 'winterover' mean?  Much like it sounds, in late February the sun will begin its annual setting, move into its single night, and then, somewhere around September, begin to rise again.  That makes about two months of sunset, four months of such darkness one cannot see one's hand, and subsequently two months of sunrise. 

The station closes mid-February to all air traffic, since temperatures will be hovering at minus 50 F around then, perilously close to the point at which hydraulics freeze and sieze.  There will be no mail, food, or people in or out of the Pole until mid-to-late October, a full seven or eight months in complete isolation, save for eight or so hours of internet per day.  For retail therapy, there is a small store that sells some of the plonkiest plonk on the planet, as well as Glenfiddich and Hershey bars. And yet, with no alternatives about, the wine dregs and bad chocolate from downunder become more delicious as the days drone on.  

There will be approximately 40 men and 10 women co-existing, all confined indoors with Ms. Tomato's cooking and a lot of board games.  We will be scrounging the frozen food bin for  anything exciting to keep all tastebuds amused.  We have already shipped down a supply of Spanish Smoked Paprika, a treat that will be saved for a special occasion.  The small greenhouse on the first floor of the station will provide fresh jalapenos, cucumbers, and enough lettuce for 2 or 3 salads a week, and that will be the extent of the live food.  

 The narrow bandwidth and odd hours of satellite connection to the outside world makes uploading  photos an arduous task, but we will try to post on about the food and survival situation.  And perhaps hint at the inevitable romantic dramas that arise in confined spaces where human animal tendencies rise toward the surface, and the gender ratio creates a sort of desperate competition and resurgence of one's childhood issues.  Losers at love, mostly  menfolk,  have been known to crumple under the weight of the love-loss and require a wheelchair, straightjacket, and team of nurses to escort them onto the first plane out of there when it finally touches down.

Of course, the majestic Aurora Australis will have to be documented.  As will the before-and-after shots of some of the menfolk who arrive fresh, plump, and cleanfaced, and invariably wind up looking like the Ted Kaczynski the Unibomber. 

In honor of Summer Solstice, June 21, 2009, we will do our very best to show how we like to Party At Pole...with a post about the fancy Mid-Winter Dinner where we pull out all culinary stops.  The celebration is often followed with the July Girlfriend Switch, so there should be plenty to talk about...stay tuned.