Notes for cooking at sea….. Most of these quantities will do crews from 25 to 75. Always remember that you usually have a second choice as well as soup, salad and sandwich. That’s what I do. You have to think of , or get to know the crew as well. This can be quite challenging if, like me, you work in a fleet where you bounce around from ship to ship, crew to crew. It makes life hard. On one ship there will be tall skinny guy—who eats just about everything as if he refrained from snacking all day and save his appetite for meal times only. Could he ever pack it away! Or, three plater, the guy piles it high and eats it all, or throws most of it away. No cost to him. So as a rule always go over by 15 percent to be safe. Often more than that and this may give you a couple menu items for later on. On one ship I had two sailors from Scotland that would eat fish for every meal. EVERY MEAL. So in the morning, kippers or fishcakes. One mistake was deciding (because you ha
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found this in a SHIPTALK newsletter…funny my trips on her were startling chaotic and while enjoyable I’ll never forget the day I was asked to leave …a day sitting anchored in the muddy estuary of the Churchill river as belugas bobbed to the surface like giant fishing floats……I had just completed an interview with CBC Hull for french tv about working as a chef at sea and as I worked around the dilapidated Russian galley, broken appliances, open grated water drains backing up, this guy was asking me (and no one else as it seemed the rest of my crew had abandoned me to drink and dance all night with the Russians) what it was like……well about two hours later after feeding 100plus I was in my cabin struggling with a broken zipper on my duffel bag, duct taping it shut as I had about 5 minutes to catch the last zodiac ashore in order to get to the plane and then the bar at the Montreal airport…..it was quite funny really as I had not been paid in 2 months, had put up with
freddychef cookin' the pot..... Cookin The Pot I’m not sure how or when it began. I was a line doggie, a grunt. A junior cook trying to improve. I remember someone yelling at me to go to the walk in and get a fish bin of tatties. Confused I slowed and asked what? That was my introduction to a new world. I had just started out in the trade of long hours, low pay and an assortment of possible life threatening mishaps. I had no idea that as I journeyed along, learning culinary techniques, regional cuisines and meeting so many interesting people, that I would also have to learn a new language. It quickly became apparent that this new language would be, on the one hand have universal, and on the other particular to a given kitchen and it’s staff. Many of the names, words, and phrases were also passed down, along or heard from other kitchen staff. The most basic universal concept was the front of house and the back of
ramblin on about cookin....Newfoundland book notes... Phrases to insert on book pages…to be in a box while regular book text written above or below; Mug Up Mug up (Boil up, cook up, Chaw and Glutch, Nunch, Yop, Munch). A mug of tea (Labrador tea, Switchel, Cup ‘o slops, kettle tea, Indian Tea) and a snack had between meals Often it is associated with working in the woods, hunting or fishing. You would bring your proggins (rough food, grub, chaw, progs, scran) in a brinbag (grubbox, dittybag, nonny, progbag, dunnybag, nunchy, nunny, grubbag, scrawn bag, bread noggin or nunchbag). A mug up could be hash (wood frolic, scouch) or vang (lather and squirt, ladder and skirt) if you were gut-foundered (hungry). If setting up camp or having a fire you would `storm the kettle boil your hot ass, piper or bibby) on your bogie(stove). When at sea fishing, you could `gallop` (boil) your slut (smut, flat arse, hurry up) in the cuddy (cookroom) while a
seaworthy notes from the past....not that long ago.... Fleece does not do well on the back of a quad in Resolute bay. I found this out last night. I was going ashore to meet up with a few of the crew already there. Derm said he would drop me off by the town but first had to pick up the ol man (skipper) at the oil pump house. I was about to help skipper and bacon boy (all 300 plus) in to the boat a couple of quads pulled up. At first I thought this was a couple of locals just dropping by. Speedy quads are the everyday way to get around these parts (earlier in Pangnirtung, as I awaited the boys outside the store a quad pulled up with what looked like mom, baby and grandma crammed aboard). It turned out to be the boys from the ship. They had rented (for 20 bucks) a couple of quad for an hour. One guy decided to go back to the ship so I waved the rest down and hopped aboard. Man, the dust was something else. Resolute is nothing but gravel, di
On the ol` orlova here is a brief bit of my old menus when on that old scow First Cruise North Menu Evening Meal Day One Field mushroom penne, with zucchini and sweet peppers. Baked Atlantic Salmon, lemon cream, braised fennel and roasted tomato. Lamb daube with root vegetable stew and sweet potato mash. Day Two Breakfast Buffet Fresh fruit salad Assorted muffins English muffins with scramble and aged cheddar Yoghurt Toast and jam Assorted cereals Hot `stick to your ribs’ porridge Bacon and country sausage Lunch Cream of carrot with orange soup Roasted tomatoes with lentils, and wilted greens. Cod au Gratin with a farmhouse cheddar crust Grilled Chicken wraps with roasted peppers and side salad Evening Meal Day Two Sauté of vegetable in phyllo nest, lemon rice pilaf and basil tomato finish Grilled Atlantic Halibut, Catalan potatoes, and honey glazed carrots. `Robert Coady got his moose`. Newfoundland
did a month on the sea, two different ships, home for 2 weeks and off on the 25th and now just home again…..like most trips all the same day in day out, captive eaters, three meals a day, usual complaints….`why is coffee and tea not on before 6 when we go to work`….why does the guy serving us wear gloves and why is he washing dishes at the same time, `hey fred we’re out of forks!`…..`potatoes again!`(and I try, I try I make mashed potatoes with cream and butter, with sour cream(because we have twenty tubs outdated!), with older milk, with cheese, with with withththththht……. This time though I brought along a helper …he is in a program called the SFWWP(small foreign wool worker program)…we got along but I hacked his emails(well since his english was not the best, , set him up with an acct and I had the pwd!)…and he was not that happy with rough seas, the heat of course, and the steam and the HOURS!!!! The complaints rolled off him of course as he did not und