Harrietts Tomato

Palmyra Dispatch #3: For The Birds

Ms. Tomato may have mentioned she is on an island, semi-deserted, in the middle of the North Pacific with five other castaways.  Well, it's been three weeks now since we've had any aircraft bring in fresh food and the worst has happened.  No salad.  So this won't be a piece about food, but rather the lack of it.  There is plenty to eat, but none of it fresh green stuff.  That arrives this coming Wednesday and we will pull out the red carpet for the boxes of Romaine that are due.

Meanwhile, these are the magnificent birds of Palmyra, angelic beings that swoop down so close they knock off our hats.  While kayaking two days ago, Ms. Tomato placed her oar on her lap and a juvenile booby promptly landed on it, using the rail as a viewing platform.--quite curious, it was, to see what this non-marine, non-airborne animal was sitting around in a long floating red thing.

Also, the sooty terns are swarming these days, millions of them overhead sailing and screeching in the courtship ritual noise that precedes egg fertilizing and nesting.  Their numbers will increase over the next two weeks until the sound is deafening.  By the time they all land in the Pisonia trees to lay their eggs, we will be glad they all finally got a room.

 

Eating Locally in the South Pacific: Coconuts & Fish

Here on Palmyra Atoll, conservation is top priority.  Anything growing or breathing that did not originate here is slated for 'eradication'...that includes a dense rat population that feels entitled to steal food from the local crabs as well as coconut trees that proliferate copiously, grabbing space-nutrients-sunlight from the dwindling native flora. 

Still, at the moment, coconuts are the only local growing thing edible to humans so we do take advantage.  And we are allowed to catch fish for our own table in waters that are not commercially fishable--it just so happens we are lucky enough to find ono and tuna close by.  With only six of us here as permanent residents for a four-month rotation, we could feasibly live off local goods were we stranded for a time.  Which we are, actually.

Last week a group of visiting  TNC board members greeted the morning of their return to society with the news our airplane was broken down and may take several days, even weeks to repair. 

They all had board meetings and such to get to, so the news was not as welcome as one might think ("You are stuck in Paradise on a tropical island with a fridge full of Corona and plenty of limes for an extra two weeks...") and a little panic ensued where state senators were called, the FAA was lobbied and all kinds of airlines were investigated.  Problem i s the runway here is made of soft ground coral and jets can't land, neither do we have landing lights so everything must take place during daytime hours.

To make a long story short, twelve lovely folks were stuck with us here on the atoll for 10 days instead of five...and they had the time of their lives.  They got over the initial panic that they were not going to make it back to work on time.  I mean, LOOK at the place!  And, as chef, working with fellow kitchen wench Suzanne,  we're not exactly chopped liver...they were well fed happy campers, very literally.

We gave them a fond farewell on Thursday.  However, we the 'permanent six ' continue here without any planage for several weeks.  We will definitely run out of salad, but will continue to be rich in coconuts and fish.

Using the two local ingredients, this is one dish we served:

Grilled Ono Fillets with Ginger Lime Coconut Sauce

2 pounds ono  fillets or other grillworthy fish
1/2 cup plus one tablespoon olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1" knob fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
2 cloves fresh garlic, chopped
2 shallots, chopped
1 cup dry to medium dry white wine
1 tablespoon vegetable stock powder or bouillon
1 can coconut milk (unsweetened)

zest plus juice of one lime
1 bunch fresh green herbs such as Italian parsley, chives or cilantro

Dry the fish fillets and coat them generously with 1/2 cup olive oil and salt and pepper.  Allow them to marinate while you start the sauce.

Over medium heat in a saucepan, add the tablespoon of olive oil along with the ginger, garlic and shallots, salt and pepper.  Saute for 3 minutes to bring out the flavor, then add the white wine and vegetable stock.  Boil the mixture down to a glaze, then add the coconut milk.  Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.  Add the lime zest and juice, turn off the heat and allow the sauce to sit while grilling the fish.

Heat the grill to high, mark the fish on both sides and continue to cook on low to medium heat until the fish is barely done in the center.  Strain the sauce and bring it to a simmer.  Place the warm sauce on a platter and place the grilled fish on top.  Sprinkle with chopped herbs.

From Pole to Equator

There is a reason Ms. Tomato has not recently written on her blog.  She has had --to say the least-- unpredictable access to the internet. 

Since leaving the South Pole on Valentine's Day, her travels have taken her from Christchurch, New Zealand, north through the beautiful paisage of that country, across to Melbourne, Australia, and the wine regions south of that vibrant city, and up to Sydney.  From Sydney she flew to Honolulu, Hawaii, landing once again on US soil, where she spent four days hanging about before boarding yet another tiny airplane full of vegetables and tractor parts, headed to an isolated part of the planet where she is now stuck until July.

We use the word 'stuck' lighty, because she now finds herself not only speaking again in third person, but living in a screen-windowed cabin 20 feet from the oceanfront of an atoll in the South Pacific. 

Palmyra Atoll is a wildlife conservation project under the protection of The Nature Conservancy and US Fish and Wildlife.  An army base of sorts during WWII, we live amongst the detritus of old warplanes, docks, and buildings, but the real rulers of this atoll are falling cocunuts, dense tropical rains, ants, birds, crabs, rats, and various other bits of insect, flora and fauna.

There are six of us here as permanent residents and up to 20 more come and go on a weekly basis -- donors, scientists, conservationists, and support staff. 

Ms. Tomato is the chef and head coconut splitter, fish gutter, ant killer, rat hunter and crab feeder.  All the lovely kitchen slop gets toted over to the 'crab pit' where the wise critters await dinner and converge the second it appears.  Rats show up to the party as well and the following day there is not a crumb on view.

Today is Sunday, our one day off, and Ms. Tomato accompanied rascallion mariners John and Chris on a fishing expedition.  Dozens of spinner dolphins were sighted, as well as manta rays, sharks, and sea turtles, and we came home bearing a very large Ono and Tuna. 

For dinner tonight we are having the world's freshest tuna sashimi along with some Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc left by this week's party....followed by extraordinarily good leftovers and freshly hacked coconut for dessert.  Gin and tonic (Sapphire Bombay) is the drink of choice around these parts around 5pm....and it's now 6:02 so we must run.

How to Cook Pig at Pole

Superbowl Sunday comes to the Pole a few days late…Wednesday to be precise, when a pirated copy of the thing makes its way to the edge of the planet.  Great pains are taken by many folks to avoid hearing who won, while others are only too happy to spill the beans.

As a non-sports fan I was happy to get the dete’s up front so as not to endure the marathon that is an American football match.  But I did taste the smoked piglet first, which was prepared on the deck barbecue by Exec Chef James Brown as a last rite before most of us vacated, leaving behind the South Pole summer season and 60 stalwart winter-overs who will not see the light of day until November.

How to cook pig: Bring in from outer berms on a skidoo.  Thaw for approximately 7 days in the thaw box.  Salt and pepper inside and out.  Smoke on a cedar plank for about an hour.  Shove into a convection oven that is too small for it…just make it fit.  Remove some teeth if necessary.  Roast for several hours.  Cut and shred to bits.  Serve with tortillas and salsa and chopped onion if you have it…whoops, don't have any of that, well then,  mashed potato made from flakes.

That was January, of course. 

February...we left the Pole a day early.  At 5:33pm an email was sent out asking us to deliver packed bags by 7pm that night, an utter impossibility.   I was napping when a friend came by to deliver the news and I did what any sane person would…crawled out of my warm bed and made two very large gin and tonics, one for the messenger and one for myself.   I delivered my bags by 10pm, and the next morning, Valentine’s Day, left in a tizzy.

Landing back in Christchurch NZ, pal Carla and I did what we could to assuage the sadness of goodbyes by immediately locating Indian food and an incredibly delicious draft Tui beer in front of the fireplace at Two Fat Indians.

The following morning I relocated to Le Café at the Arts Center next to the extraordinary Botanical Gardens and stayed there for one week, drinking coffee, wine and beer, and eating amazing breakfasts with that hammy thick bacon that I’d dreamed of whilst at the Pole.

By Friday I’d had enough of the seabird that screamed incessantly, blackmailing me into sharing lunch, so I hopped in a car with friends Jill & Darren and we mosied on up to wine country….the Marlborough wine road where Sauvignon Blanc, Reisling and Gewurtz reign supreme, along with a little Pinot Noir, and hit about seven wineries before getting on the ferry to Wellington.  Wellington must have some redeeming qualities, but on a Saturday night all we experienced for hours was an army of boozed up 20-year olds eating kebabs on the street, a great deal of bad house music, and extraordinary amounts of cleavage.

The Marlborough run was much more delightful and I must say my favorite bottles were from Villa Maria who do some interesting things under their R & D label (does stand for Research & Development), blending everything from their vineyards together (in a good way: 2006 Pinot Gris, Gewurz and Viognier, yum) and charging a nice price for the privilege.

Of course I bought a couple of things and surreptitiously plucked a job application from the counter, as harvest happens within two weeks and I am recently unemployed.  Not sure what will occur next in Ms. Tomato's world, but it may involve Pinot Noir.

South Pole Dispatch #5: Happy 2008

Ah yes—the subtleties of South Pole culture.  This brilliant gingerbread ‘pee-can’ is a monument to an age-old custom down here at the end of the earth where all directions point north—the Chamber Pot.  In this case, a former can of marinara sauce.

There is a newly built main station, dedicated just this week, but not all 250 of us living and working here fit in the very nice single bedrooms that are part of that edifice.  Through some strange aberration of design, the building is made to house about half the workers and has no coat hooks, bar, or yoga studio.  What were they thinking…but since the design team is based in Hawaii, they just MAY not have had a clue about life at the Pole...although to be fair they were commissioned to accommodate 150 people in their building while the reality is much different.

At any rate, the Other Half of us live in a glorified tent village about a 10 minute walk from the main building, which we lovingly refer to as Summer Camp.  We have our own recreation building here and a separate smoking lounge where people hang out with Marlboros and bottles of Smirnoff.  It is a bit of the wild west on this side of the tracks since we don’t really have to behave out here, and the most popular videos to watch at the smoking lounge are Deadwood and Firefly: one a tony gold mining western yarn and the other a science fiction western cult classic.

With workers employed 24 hours per day, one can be assured that there will always be a drunk person in the lounge and many a romantic (if you can call it that) hookup and friendly brawl has taken place here.  Wait...one recent brawl was not quite SO friendly, but be assured that is not the norm.  

Back to the Pee Can…many of us store these under our beds because the toilet…sweetly named the Ice Palace….is a very cold walk from our quarters.  Imagine being under many many covers in a chilly room, having finally built up enough body heat under there to fall asleep, only to find you have to use the facilities.  This means donning the bunny boots, hat, parka, etc, and venturing out into the blinding light that is the 24-hour sun reflecting off a giant sheet of  ice and snow.  I do it, but then I’m a fussy princess, but there are few men that do not succumb to the convenience of the Pee Can.  And thus the Gingerbread Pee Can was born, thanks to Baker John who is a genius.

Christmas, like Thanksgiving, is an upscale event here, and we served Beef Wellington and Lobster tails to an appreciative audience.  Afterward, a really fun dance party until the wee hours—those who work hard DANCE hard.  The next week, live bands for New Years Eve with many, many construction workers showing up in drag.  Cross dressing steelworkers of the Pole—seems to be a bit of a tradition.

Christmas Day a traverse arrived, the ITASE Traverse, which is a train of vehicles that travel 880 miles from the coast of the Antarctic to the Pole to collect snow samples every 2 kilometers in an effort to document the pollutive effect of airplanes on the snow.  There were twelve folks traveling together for two months with no day off.  One of them, Luci, was the cook and gave me a tour of her galley, pictures here show her two burners, 2 foot diameter dining table, and slosh bucket sink…a kitchen on the road which also served as a home to her, her husband, and two other workers.

Now that is the Wild West.

Thanksgiving at the South Pole

250 wanderers hanging out at the end of the earth – yet they will not do without turkey and stuffing at Thanksgiving.  Some things are non-negotiable.

The South Pole galley staff all worked on Thanksgiving weekend while the rest of the crew enjoyed two entire days off – contracts specify only one day off per week normally – but the culinary labors were much appreciated. 

We made the usual traditional foods, and Exec Chef James gave out assignments.  Mine was two kinds of stuffing, turkey-infused and vegetarian – for the “hounds” as we call them, since they waste ne’er a minute lining up for meals to refill their constantly emptying caloric coffers. 

Fortunately we have this gizmo called a Tilt-Skillet, a foot-deep electric fry pan that measures about 3-4’ square and can handle a LOT of stuffing.  Why “tilt”?  Because when you are done moving the food around with a 5-foot paddle, you can turn on a little switch and the entire thing tilts forward for emptying and cleaning.  You practically have to crawl inside to clean the thing, but in a situation such as this, it is an invaluable tool.

Thanksgiving is Exec Chef James’ baby – he is often planning and supporting but leaves the rest of us to our own devices in the day-to-day cooking.  Holiday time, though, he is hands-on.  He smoked 8 turkeys on the back deck in 50 below weather, then deep fried another 8.  The rest were served roasted au naturel.  Will, the dinner sous-chef, was entrusted with several vats of real mashed potatoes – the first real potatoes anyone had seen around here in months – as well as buckets of roasted root veggies. 

Appetizers were served in the hallway—smoked salmon, tapenade, baked brie en croute--and this was one opportunity for everyone to get out of their Carhart padded overalls and into something fancy…at the very least clean jeans and a t-shirt with clean hair.  Not such an easy thing when you are allowed only two showers a week due to water rations. 

The dining room, which is usually flooded with round-the-clock sunlight, was window-darkened and strung with blue sparkly light strings.  Volunteers moved tables end-to end and wine bottles served as candle-holders.  Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only two days of the year that candles are allowed due to high risk of fires – something that would be a serious disaster out here in the middle of nowhere at the very end of the planet. 

Other volunteers served as wine-stewards and waitstaff for the three different seatings, and still others had come together a couple of days before for a potato-peeling and pie-baking party.  Dessert, on view here, consisted of pumpkin, pecan and apple pies, all with perfectly rustic brown crusts. 

Christmas quickly approaches and it will be another food marathon in the same vein – this time we serve Beef Wellington.  After dinner, just as with Thanksgiving, a pretty wild dance party will emerge—these are not conventional folks--one which will carry on until about 6am when everyone heads back to their rooms for a nap before brunch and the to-order omelette bar – a mid-morning Sunday tradition on the one day about 90% of the crew have free.

(OTHER PHOTO EXPLANATIONS: Dan the Materials Purveyor bringing in food from the boonies; The sublime greenness of the cosmic drink we serve here called Lime Raro; Sophisticated outdoor food storage methods; The galley crew at the Pole,; )

South Pole Dispatch#3

The galley at the South Pole station is about half the size of my Brooklyn one-bedroom and filled with about as many pots, pans, and cooking gizmos.  The difference is it produces four meals a day plus thousands of cookies for 250 people, many of whom are working outdoors in some serious weather.   (At right, some of them coming back to the station for lunch in a slight blizzard.)

They deserve their cookies.  A typical work day here starts with a good 9 hours, and can easily turn into 12.   It’s still early in the summer, more like early spring, so temperatures are not at hat-shedding levels yet, and many of these folks spend their days in 40 to 90 degrees below zero, engaged in physical labor of some sort.  After only one week of arduous outdoor work,  the carpenters, cargo haulers, and mechanical geniuses that keep things working bought up all the superglue—there is a tiny shop here, open an hour a day-- to patch up their cracking fingers.

In the galley, we have an Executive Chef, three sous-chefs, three cooks, one breakfast chef, and a baker.  In addition to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, there is a MidRats meal (midnight rations) for the 70 or so who work all night.  Out of all the cooks, the baker--as chief Sugar Purveyor, is most adored, though seldom seen due to his nocturnal hours.  When hungry workers assemble at 5:30am for breakfast, they are greeted by freshly made cinnamon rolls, apple cake, granola bars, or whatever magically appears on chrome bar. 

Amundsen figured an Antarctic explorer needed a good 7,700 calories per day to survive this whacky weather that is unfit even for microbes and cockroaches.  No big surprise, then, that this is a big meat and potatoes crowd.  Actually, this environment is one of the only ones I can think of that might warrant that kind of diet—low fat vegans would have a hard time surviving this kind of physical rigor. 

Back in Brooklyn this year, I was eating a vegan diet for several months before landing on The Ice.  That idea lasted about a day after my arrival.  I began, gingerly, to have bacon at breakfast, then a beer bratwurst at lunch.  I still have not been able to go as far as a steak and baked potato, but then my ice exposure is limited to about an hour a day--15 minutes each way that it takes to get to work from my room in a somewhat-glorified tent on the outskirts of camp--and I do the round trip twice a day.  Even that requires a few calories at  a cold 11,000 feet above sea level.  (At left see small snowbank that appeared inside my room some time ago and refuses to leave...comfy as it is since the room sometimes veered around the high 30's at night for the first two weeks I lived in it.)

My day begins at 4:30 with an evil alarm clock.  I pull on my chef uniform, then the padded Carhart overalls, a fleece jacket, and a superduper Pole jacket…and this is just to get to the building where the nearest bathroom is located.  I then appear in the galley at 5am to help with breakfast and make a hot lunch.  By 3pm my work is supposedly over, and I redress, then walk back to my bed for a nap.  If it is a shower day (only two, two-minute showers per week for most, but galley workers get three) , I indulge in the sweetest two minutes of the day after snoozing, then attend dinner in the dining hall feeling almost human. 

This is the driest environment in the world—and chapped lips and cracked hands are a given.  My lips give all the appearance of ruby lipstick, but they are simply windbitten and moisture-starved to a ruddy hue.  Burt’s Bees Lip Balm is making a good profit down here. 

As far as green goes, South Pole station crew haven’t seen a fresh vegetable, piece of fruit, or real egg all winter.  Weather is just now getting warm enough that planes can arrive with this type of supply—and people and construction materials are the first priority. Incidentally, at righyou see the interior of the dome, former South Pole Station and now our surplus refrigerator.  All the boxes lined up under this magnificent 50 year old structure are filled with tater tots, green peas and such.  The new strucure is on stilts so it doesn't get buried in the drifting snow which inevitably happens to all things around here.

There is a greenhouse—a small oasis of loveliness—but it produces just enough lettuce, cucumbers and herbs to satisfy my own personal salad habit, and that’s about it.

Here's today's lunch menu, which I did not make since it is my day off and I get to write instead.  But it is a pretty good indicator of what’s on...and what's available without any "freshies" as the Polies call them.

Hamburger Soup
Shrimp Fajitas (with frozen peppers)
Pasta with Pesto Cream
Rice and Beans
Green Peas
Green Salad
Butterscotch Bars

South Pole Dispatch #2

These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale...We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker of course and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more. For God's sake, look after our people.--Robert F. Scott in has last letter to his wife who was rumored to be having an affair with a Norwegian explorer while her husband was freezing to death at the South Pole

What you see above is not the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) galley rations, 'though there are good things to be said for biscuits, oatmeal, cabbage, Golden Syrup and pickled onions.  This the shelf inside the hut at Cape Evans on the beachfront of Ross Island off the Antarctic continent--intact as Robert Falcon Scott left it on his fateful trek to and from the South Pole in 1913.

We've been a little stuck here ourselves.  The Basler plane that is to carry us from the edge of the continent to the interior has been grounded due to inclement weather.  Three days running we have risen at 6am, run out to the shuttle with our orange-issue bag full of two weeks of stuff (suitcases to follow later since the Basler can only take 4,000 pounds), and found a little handwritten note on the manifest saying "24 Hour Delay". 

The good news--the very nice Recreation Department at McMurdo Station organized a couple of ginormous Delta trucks to haul us newbies two hours away to the other side of the island to visit Scott Hut, 77°38′S, 166°24′E, at the glacier tongue on Erebus Bay beneath Mount Erebus, an actively smoking volcano.   

On the way we were enthralled and ridiculously charmed by seven Emperor Penguins who waddled over to see who and what the heck we were.  This does not happen every day...and even the grizzliest of mountain men in our troop were reduced to gushing schoolgirls.  The birds really do look like elderly waiters about to serve a good cocktail.

Back to Scott: the son of an English brewer and magistrate, he joined the navy at 13 years old.  In his early thirties he made his first expedition to the Antarctic, 1901-1904.  The second fateful one turned into a race to the Pole, from 1910-1913, which he lost to Norwegian explorer Amundsen. 

Scott and his team froze to death on the way back from the Pole in 1913, leaving their Cape Evans hut exactly as it was for posterity,  complete with leashed dog carcasses lying around the building and jars and cans of uneaten food.  (On top of a blizzard and the frostbite that came with it, hunger was an issue as poor Scott had miscalculated the calorie count for his men, assigning around 4000 calories per day on the trek, when actually they needed more than 7000.)

Around this post, some photos of English food circa 1913, and the kitchen wares, including a Chinese vase and serving dish found on the dining table in the center of the hut.

The photo of the teacups and the 100 year old penguin eggs below are both by Carla Appel.

This photo of 100 year old penguin eggs collected by Scott's team was taken by Carla Appel.