Big Breakfast, The Dish Pit and Rehm

Life at the South Pole is sometimes tedious. There is no sunrise/sunset to end one day and start another. So that leaves the galley crew as the unofficial time keepers on the station. We know it's a new day when Michael Rehm makes breakfast. Check out Michael's blog here.

Every Sunday the galley crew gets the day off and everyone fends for themselves. But once a month Michael heroically foregoes his day off and makes what is called the Big Breakfast. This is a larger spread than normal as people actually have time to sit down and eat for awhile instead of scurrying off to computers or FEMC strecthing class. This last Big Breakfast I "helped" Michael. As everyone who knows me, I have trouble boiling water but even I can wash dishes. Michael started at about 1am to serve breakfast at 10a. I got in at about 3a and helped out until about 10a. Michael worked until about 1p.
That's the flattop Michael uses for making pancakes, omelets, hash browns, etc. You can see Bob Campbell in the background lining up for breakfast three hours early. Big Breakfast is a big deal.
When the galley crew dirty's up a pot, pan or bucket and places it on this little cart. That's when the dish washer springs into action. There is normally more then one pot here, I had been cleaning for 4+ hours to get this close to caught up.
Jeff DeRosa was the overnight MET guy for the month. The MET guys work 7 days a week, 12 hour shifts. But they do have some spare time between observations. So Jeff came in and made bacon, a lot of bacon as a matter of fact.
This is where you spend your time when you have to work in the galley. I volunteered to help with Big Breakfast but everyone has to spend a full work day in here about every two months. It is pretty mindless work but at the same time challenging in that I am not used to standing for 8-10 hours at a time. I spent last Friday in here for my entire day. No paperwork, no reports, no meetings (well two meetings, less then normal though).
Another view of the dish pit.
A picture of me in the Dish Pit. If you are in the galley at all you have to wear a hat, even to clean dishes.

Here is the spread that Michael put out:

So that's a Big Breakfast and an introduction to the Dish Pit. How do you reward a man like Michael after a grueling day of cooking? One word - SCOTCH! I had a good time helping although I was beat by the end of the day. I would be remiss if I did not post this picture of Michael:
You too can bring your advanced degree to Antarctica and feel like this! This is actually left over from the summer when Michael did nothing but wash dishes (not as glamorous as it sounds). All you kids out there, only seven years of college and you too can cook at the South Pole!