Chow

I think one of the questions I get asked the most about the ship is, "what is the food like?"

So, I thought I'd try to answer that question this week.

Once a week or so, you might catch a bit of of this chaos going on as fresh, locally purchased produce is brought on board; carried up the gangway and into the lift, up to deck 6 where the galley is.

Other, less perishable food arrives every 2-4 weeks on containers from the US and Holland. It's usually brought aboard with a crane, saving a lot of backache. This also usually includes some goodies like chocolate and cookies that we can purchase in the Ship Shop, and coffee for the Café. 

In the galley, a team of more wonderful volunteers, alongside local day crew, work their butts off to prepare food for the ~400 crew, ~100 day crew, and ~100 patients & caregivers that are on board every day. 

There's also a bake shop where all our bread and the occasional treats are baked:

How I wish I could take credit for that photo! The galley is, however, off limits to most of the crew. All we see is the end result. After food is prepared, it is lowered down to the dining room on deck 5, where the lovely serving team loads up the buffet.

My lovely friend Ruth, a Norwegian teacher, who just
 finished her time here on the dining room team. Miss you!

Meanwhile, another team is carting food down the lift to the wards on deck 3 for the patients. They are served more traditional food, meaning the galley has to cook separate meals for all of them! My parents will tell you how much that can complicate things.

Every Tuesday, however, the entire ship shares a traditional meal on "Africa Night," often something like this:

Rice, fried plantain, beef with spicy tomato sauce

Other meals are more "western," although they do a good job of trying to cater to our international crew's variety of tastes. There is ALWAYS rice, even at breakfast! There's also always fresh veg and fruit, cheese, bread, and condiments if you'd prefer to make a sandwich or "toastie" (this is British for "grilled cheese"). Which is good when your stomach is feeling a bit sensitive, and casava leaf mash just doesn't sound like a good idea.

Most of our meals, however, look something like this:

Chicken breast with mushroom sauce

Or this:

Slightly over-done roast beef with au jus

But I have to say, my favourite meal is when we get breakfast for dinner (which we did last night): 

Baked French toast with berry cream, scrambled eggs &
creamed spinach, fresh pineapple, hashbrowns, and sausage. 

Sorry, I may have taken a few bites of this one before I had the sense to take a picture. IT WAS JUST SO GOOD. 

Here's this week's dinner menu, where you can see some of the other meals we can look forward to:

There's also always coffee, tea and "milk" in the dining room, which is definitely a blessing on night shifts. I say "milk" because it's actually UHT - milk that has been pasteurized at such a high temperature it doesn't need to be refrigerated. But hey. It tastes the same. :)

Hope that answers some questions!

Well, gotta go before I miss lunch! 

-D