Food!

A common and essential question is “What’s for dinner?” Working in the Arctic is no exception. We look forward to meal time more than the normal person. 

When working land rigs it is a fend for yourself situation. We cook for ourselves, clean up after ourselves, drive ourselves around. If you are a lousy cook, town is usually not too far away where you can get a hot meal and microwaveable supplies. Of course here in the Arctic that is not an option. There is no small town with overpriced food to drive to and no truck to do it in and kitchen to make it in. Everything we would get from a small town, fire department, police, grocery stores, etc. we have to bring with us. 

So in a camp of 600, there is a platoon of cooks that make a plethora of food. The sheer amount of food is amazing! At my camp the serve two hot meals a day, breakfast and dinner.

I came up just in time for some of the best meals of the year. Working during the holidays is never easy so they try their best to make it special. Christmas and New Year’s Day are the big feasts here. The cooks work for days ahead of time getting it all ready. They even make ice sculptures!

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Last night was the party for the new year and I was a very happy camper! I got salmon and humus.   The meatballs were winners. The lobster was covered in butter and good as well. I heard the steaks were good but I didn’t have one. They even had sparkling cider and near beer for toasting. The crab legs were at Christmas and the lobster was at New Year’s. And plenty of delicious sweets and appetizers.  All in all a good holiday season!

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Leftovers for lunch today (such leftovers!) and back to our normal fare tonight. Tomorrow is burger night and prime rib on Sunday. It’s a hard life, but someone has to do it! Good thing the gym is equally well stocked!

Weather today a warm -17⁰F with 9 mph winds and 4 hours and 24 minutes of Civil Twilight.