So I’m up in Thunder Bay again.
I convoyed up in Pink Penny with five other guys last
Monday. Good driving, gorgeous views through the Shield, but
definitely still lots of ice on the lakes. When we arrived, my plan was to stay in a trailer at
the shop and to cook and wash in the reefer kitchen, but in fairly predictable
fashion, the kitchen was nowhere to be found. So Naomi, my assistant cook, welcomed me to stay at her
place.
The first week was a lot of errands, and planning, and it
was great to have a home base at Naomi’s house. She lives on a farm 20 minutes outside of Thunder Bay,
nestled inbetween the Nor’Westers.
It’s the kind of place where there’s a bucket of fresh eggs inside the
door every morning, a box of kittens in the kitchen, and something freshly
baked cooling on the counter. I’ve
decided that happiness is curling up in a beat up recliner beside a woodstove
with a mug of tea, taking in the view of rolling pastures and a pink-purple evening
sky. Alice and Fritz are wonderful
people with a wonderful home.
Monday we headed out to the bush with our 15-seater diesel
beast of a van loaded to the racks with groceries. Our camp is an hour and a half from Thunder Bay, just off
the highway that heads towards Armstrong. The camp is nothing too special, just
a gravel pit left behind by loggers.
Accommodations are pretty fantastic though—we have a staff trailer,
complete with beds, heat and hydro!
And it’s parked up on a bit of a hill, so I really feel like the king of
the castle when I come out and see all the lowly planters in their tents
below. Just kidding, I love
planters.
So…cooking.
That’s the big reason I’m here.
To summarize: the week was long, and stressful, but ultimately
rewarding. I know that I should
have known that things wouldn’t go quite as expected, but there were a lot more
challenges than I was prepared for.
We have a crew of 65 planters and 9 staff, so we’re cooking for 75
people, though originally I had been told 40. People told me, “Well, just make double of everything!” Making double of everything takes twice
as much time my friends, and unfortunately the time in a day is not doubling as
well. So over the course of the first
three days I got a total of 11 hours of sleep. Needless to say, when I napped on Friday, I napped
HARD.
Two days before we headed into the bush I found out that
there is a vegan on our crew. Not
to worry, I spent several hours in Chapters reading about vegan cooking and
assembling a mix of recipes. One I
arrived in the bush I found out that there are also two vegetarians, a girl
that is lactose-intolerant, and a girl that is lactose-intolerant, celiac, and
vegetarian. So I am currently
honing the skill of inventing foods with flax seeds and coconut butter.
Despite bringing two vanloads of food into the bush, we were
running low on several items by Thursday.
So we switched our dinner plans to something quick and easy, and drove
back into Thunder Bay for the afternoon to buy yet another load of produce,
eggs, and bread. We’re currently
trying to work out the logistics of driving a week’s worth of food in the van
in a single load, when the van is only big enough to hold half of them. #cookproblems
Making the food is the fun part. I love baking, enjoy cooking, tolerate lunch prep, and
despise dishes. At 4 am it’s hard
to WANT to get out of bed, but by 4:15, once I have a coffee in my hands, I
really enjoy making breakfast.
Especially when we nail it, like we did with the honey and orange glazed
french toast. Unfortunately, the
generator has killed that joy on several occasions this week, crapping out just
as we reached the peak of breakfast rush.
Few things stress me out more than telling 65 planters there will be no
coffee. And walking empty-handed
into the food tent, while a group of them unknowingly give me puppy eyes,
holding their empty plates. My
goal is to make more than enough food every morning, and it’s brutal when it’s
just sitting on the counter, unable to bake in time for bus departure because
we have a crappy old generator.
The crowning glory of the week’s problems was on Friday when
the generator quit AND the water pump broke. So we had no power or water. Oh, and then Friday afternoon, while our supervisor was in
town trying to get everything fixed, the health inspector came to camp, and
Naomi and I were the only ones there to deal with him. We didn’t dare start cooking while he
was there because we didn’t even have water to wash our hands. So for two hours we sat outside and
waited. And discussed how people
would feel if we made peanut butter sandwiches for dinner.
But Saturday we killed it. Lasagna, garlic bread caesar salad with real bacon bits and
homemade croutons, and banana cream poundcake for dessert. Everyone ate til they were full, and even the guy who
hates lasagna said he liked it.
Big W for the kitchen!
So all in all it’s been challenging, but worth it so far. I’m meeting some great people at camp,
having a fun time in the kitchen with Naomi, feeling large and in charge, and
pulling off some stuff I didn’t think I could. C’est bon!
Went for a skate around Boulevard Lake
Checking out the crazy amounts of water in Kek
Farm life
Don't miss that
Photos of us actually cooking food another time.
