Well, it's about that time of the week again, so here I am. I now have a new job-on Tuesdays I get to the librarian from-10:30 in the mornings. It's a lot of fun- not many folks stop by and I can use the computer without anybody breathing down my neck as they wait for a chance. I expect to get some writing done in this time slot-Great American Novel, her I come! (just kidding)
It was some hectic week with all of Thanks giving to get through.
we made:
1,200 rolls
40 Pecan Pies
48 Pumpkin cheesecakes
24 flourless chocolate cakes
60 Apple pies
60 pumpkin pies
4 full sheets of marjolaine-which is three layers of walnut meringue filled with maple buttercream and orange buttercream and all enrobed in ganache.
There were also 60 loaves of walnut cranberry bread.
The rest of the usual suspects were there too- turkey, stuffing, mashed 'taters, Green bean casserole, etc, etc. I was too busy or too tired to even remember to get pictures. I'll try to snag some from Paul-the other midrats baker.
Otherwise, no big news.
It was my birthday last Tuesday (the 21st) and I got a stunning 2# of chocolates from Piron, which I just had to share. There were too many to eat all by myself. And lots of boxes with books in them arrived. Some I have donated to the library, some I'm reading first. Thanks! for all of the goodies. I some package mail waiting for me right now in the mail room-I wonder what it is?!
Here's hoping everyone had a happy healthy holiday-which includes at least three slices of dessert.
Becky

It's a wild, wild life

So I've seen my first Skua of the season. The bird was flying around the other day, and when it disappeared I thought it had gone to roost on the roof of the galley, waiting for a sandwich to be carried out for its lunch. But no! It had just hunkered down in the parking lot known as derelict junction, and was resting comfortably on the ground about 2 feet from one of the vans. They're pretty big birds-wingspan is over 24"- and the top of the food chain around here. People are just convenient carriers of goodies as far as the skuas are concerned.
I've got an extra day off-it's my Thanksgiving holiday. Needless to say (so why am I saying it then? Very good question...) on Thanksgiving itself the galley staff is busy. Very, very busy.
So we get our holidays when we can manage them. I spent my extra time in the ceramics room, working on a project that I'll post more about when it's closer to being done. And it isn't a pot or an ashtray, either!
Yesterday was an informal galley gathering in Hut 10, which used to be the Admiral's hose when this was real Navy base. Now we use it for parties and housing visiting brass. In contrast to previous galley parties this one was quite subdued-for much of the day just Rob, one of the AM cooks and myself were hanging out, watching movies, playing loud music and playing Set. Set is a very nifty card game- look at the web site www.setgame.com for an idea. And there was almost no food. Most galley parties are overflowing with enough food to feed a village, but this one had only some nice fruit kuchen from Rob and some pizza that came by around 9PM. During the course of the evening other folks drifted in and out-at one point we had five guests! It was great, just like having a living room again. After the Midrats shift was done the whole crew came by and we watched Pirates of the Caribbean. (Shane, one of our cooks, has a radio show. He is serializing the exploits of Pirate Captain Drew ((our sous-chef)) and the rest of us. It's rather...odd. Drew just had his legs gnawed off by hamsters, and Emily goes around preaching democracy to preschoolers whilst I myself am some knod of secret ninja.) Much fun was had by all.
We have a greenhouse here that provides hydroponically grown vegetables. The gardener-person can also grow other stuff- Brent gave me a present. See the link to find out what it was.
http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m266/bheydemann/wild%20life/?sc=4

Field Trip

So I got to go out to Cape Evans last week. It was a great little trip, just a few hours long, but still a lot closer to the Antarctica of my time at the Pole than this year in Town.
You climb into the vehicle called a Delta and strap yourself in as the driver gets the thing in gear. It's a bouncy ride at the best of times, and if the road is rough you can catch some air on the bumps. The trip is over the sea-ice and there are pressure ridges where the glaciers and the pack ice are moving together. The flags on the roadside keep the vehicle out of the cracks and holes. The Barnard Glacier rises up not far from the hut site, but w couldn't go too close to it-we didn't know where the holes were and no-one wanted to go for a swim!
After about an hour you can see Tent Island rising up in front. When Scott got here much of this ice was water and he sailed right in. Then he built a hut, which is still standing. It has stables for his ponies, and the equpimnet is still there, including the pony-snowshoes. Inside the cabin proper it's actually very dark, but my flash did a great job. Nice to see that the cocoa was available in quantity! Of course, so was the pickled cabbage-mostly there as an anti-scorbutic.
Scott had himself a few square yarsd of space, while the enlisted men got to be crammed in almost as tightly as onboard ship-18" between hammocks. Never understood that method of housekeeping, egalitarian that I am.
Of course, they left piles of stuff everywhere-crates and so on clutter the area. The group that mantains the place had to remove some a few years ago- they were afraid that someone was going to setp on a buried crate and injure themselves.
A few of the surviving crew put up a cross for the ones who died in the area- Scott and his companions were buried in the snow just as they were. I got one nice shot from the top of the hill and my batteries conked out, Alas.
But the view was just as nice without the camera, and I had a great time getting to see some of the continent.
Here's a link to the photos!
http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m266/bheydemann/Cape%20Evans/?sc=6&start=all

still crazy

Well, we finally got all of the South Pole crew shuffled off to their new home at the bottom of the world. Wish I was going wth them...
But with the population down to under 1,000 and another night baker here work is almost under control. Of course, now the holiday madness begins to set in-we need 2,500 dinner rolls, 150 pies and 14 or so sheets of goodies like pumpkin cheescake for Thnaksgiving and lots of stuff for christmas.
Here in Mac Town life is very... normal. People have regular schedules, and regular hang-outs and so on, so for days on end you can almost forget where you are. Then you get to go out of town for a few hours and you can see just how tiny the town is compared to the continent. And how LOUD the place is. While we love the hum of the generators (heat is a good thing down here), as a ubiquitous background noise it gets a bit wearing. I got out to Cape Evans-about 14 miles away, and we could feel the quiet. A group went out to check out the hut that Scott and his crew stayed in on the expedition that he never returned from. A wierd, guy, Scott. His big regret at getting to the Pole was finding out he wasn't the first person there. With that as the main drive to walk across this place, it's no wonder he froze in his tent. I guess he didn't know that the journey has to be it's own reason for going....
Lots of folks aking me "why did I come down here?!" these days. I guess that the facts of work, even in Antarctica, are starting to overwhelm the sense of adventure. And here at McMurdo it's hard to get close to the Science. At the Pole, with only 200 or so folks around, you know everyone. Here the beakers often seem to skip the idea that a person cooked that food, cleaned that bathroom or made the heat in their lab work. And with my wacky schedule I even get to miss the science lectures. So it's easy to think that you're hear baking for a crowd of folks who are here cleaning and maintaining the place so they need a baker, and around and around. And town seems so big when you're in it-you can go from home to work to the gym to the library and not look out and see the mountains or the sea-ice.
If any of you know a scientist down here- send them by the bakeshop between 9PM and 730AM, especially if they're cute. Thanks.
And a modification to the wish list-
NZ customs won't send whiskey through the mails. They pour out the booze and SEND THE EMPTY BOTTLE!! I learned this by whinging at the mail room that no-one loved me enough to send me any. Now love yourselves even more and ignore all of that noise and DON'T send me any booze. I will have to find a person to hand-carry some down from Christchurch on an inbound flight. Hmmm-wonder wht the flight-crews like for dessert.....
Well, time to return to the salt mines-
I can now bench-press more than Nick, the other Lead Baker. When he saw this, he blushed. Tee-Hee!