Text 14391, 110 rader
Skriven 2007-04-21 13:27:51 av Carol Shenkenberger (6:757/1)
     Kommentar till en text av Glen Jamieson
Ärende: Re: HAWG TIED  70419
============================
*** Quoting Glen Jamieson from a message to Carol Shenkenberger ***

 CS> Grin, they generally are good all on their own.  They have these
 CS> 'culinary arts' schools and I filed to fund another 6 next year to
 CS> stateside schools and 2 for a Korean cookery school in Seoul.  I dont
 CS> know if we will get the money, but one has to ask first to see if it
 CS> will come.  2 of the stateside ones wil get bakery schools, 2 will get
 CS> something special on stews and soups, and 2 will get 'main meals'. 
 CS> Most of our cooks have never had that training but are just natural
 CS> good cooks. 

GJ> With that sort of attention to sustenance, I can see that the Navy
GJ> would be very attractive as a service in which to make a career.  Very
GJ> jolly jack tars!

That it is!  Navy cooks do quite well getting jobs as chef's after a few years
and I don't mean as short order cooks either. They tend to have a rather wide
variety of food-styles from all over the world and think nothing of making 100
servings, 3,000 servings, or 10 servings <g>.  Any one of the well thought of
AYCE buffet places you hear them mention stateside, probably has an ex-navy
cook involved.  They have experience in hot-table cookery which is a specialty
area to get it right.


 CS> Some comes from a central navy distro setup but alot comes from
 CS> whatever port we are in.  If the list says 'onions' nothing stops them
 CS> from getting a palate of Vidalias as one of the 6 or so <g>.  (A palate
 CS> is about 4ft x 5ft x 5ft and crated).  I bet I just mis-spelled palate
 CS> ;-) 

GJ> Yeah!  Pallet is the word you want there, but palate is also a good
GJ> word to use when discussing food.   :)  There is obviously someone on
GJ> your ship with a good "palate", and knowledge of what is available,

There ya are!  Thats the right word.  Yes, the cooks check out what the local
area has and arranges what they want from lists of standard things then
preorders it all via whatever port services-like organization that place has. 
It arrives in trucks and we carry it all onboard.

Last time in Korea, we had a 100man (well, some were women but you get the
picture) working party strung in one line all the way from the pier truck tot
he hanger bay.  The marines took one look and made a second line while waiting
for their busses to arrive and we onloaded really fast.  They made a little
contest to see who could empty a truck first <grin, Navy won but not by
much!>. The winning boiled down to them having 2 Gunny Sargents in the truck
unloading and us having one Chief (Cook rate, used to that job for years). 
The Chief was faster than the 2 Gunny's (snicker).

GJ> where, who is involved in the selection of supplies when in port, to
GJ> ensure that a wide range of quality ingredients are purchased.

Absolutely.  There's quite a bit of wriggle room too in what they can get.  For
example, 50 pallets of fruit can be any fruit you want within limits that it
has to be storable (the bulk) to last 4 weeks.  That means in Thailand and OZ,
we get starfruit for a portion of it (doesnt store long but it's good eating)
and dragon-fruit (stores well), meekans in Japan (they store better than you'd
think), jackfruit in the Philipennes, stuff like that.  It's not just apples
and oranges here at all.  We even trade with other ships <g>.  We got helo's
and pass stuff back and forth clandestinly.  We can officially admit we do
that with US ships.  We cant admit we do it with French, OZ, etc ships too
<g>.

I distinctly recall once loading up a pallet of kiwi fruit to a cargo net and
mystified seeing only a russain ship out there.  Now I aint saying nothjing
but gosh fresh perogies are good arent they!  So is smoked salmon though we
seemed to run out of our usual formed turky loaf and am told mysterously one
of the whole frozen hogs went astray...  Thats ok.  I was happy to have smoked
salmon!

BTW, talking of the formed turkey loaf we get, it's *very* good.  Very moist
with lots of dark meat mixed in.  It might sound awful (Turkey preformed
loaf?) but it slices to nice parts that sorta fall apart so you can get
perfect chuncks of dark meat, or white, or mixed.  They cook this over a bed
of stuffing so the stuffing comes out really good.  Some they cook alone and
make gravy from the drippings.  While I can make a better gravy, this stuff
isnt bad at all and it's definately 'home made from scratch' stuff.

 GJ> What a brilliant idea to boost enthusiasm in the galleys.

 CS> It was!  The cooks were very happy to perform for us.  We asked if
 CS> next time, we can have an 'iron chef' of non-CS (cooks rate) try their
 CS> hands at it. 

GJ> Keep that level of enthusiasm going!

We do!  While i speak of the cooking events more here, there are obviously many
other things going on.

A fun one and we all Cheered Mightily, was the basketball game.  Did I mention
my CO isnt much taller than me?  Fast lil'sucker though!  Very fair and
even-handed as well so we all really like him.  Cute too <g>.

 CS> We'd have done a wider vote but the various mess decks (galleys) are
 CS> not capable of feeding the entire crew because their gear varies in
 CS> size. The main mess deck can make a meal for 3,000 for example (and
 CS> usually does) but the wardroom cant handle more than 100 servings nor
 CS> can the CPO mess. 

GJ> Understood.  What was done obviously worked well.  Perhaps you could
GJ> get some video cameras to cover the galley activities?  :)

Hehe naw, the cameras were on the sports events.  We do have a full media
onboard contingent though.  Navy rate for that is 'MC' and we have an MCC, 2
MC1's, and a little tribe of about 6 others.  They also operate 2 local (local
to the ship) movie channels that run 24/7 underway.

                                       xxcarol

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