1989, Part 3

There was so much we didn't know, but most of it really didn't bother us. For example, in case of a fire anywhere on the ship, the kitchen crew is supposed to be the first ones in. "Don't worry, we reassigned that duty," the Boatswain told us. "The hoses are about 50 pounds each."

And when we did the abandon ship drill, each of us was designated to a different lifeboat and directed to bring food. As a joke, I grabbed a number 10 can of sauerkraut and reported to my station. When they saw what I had, the other crew members were not amused. "Did you even bring a can opener?" asked one.

We also were not aware that the kitchen staff is responsible for cleaning the captain's quarters daily. To this day I'm still a little skeptical about that one, but my sister kindly channeled her former summer job as a motel maid and handled the duty.

I also had no idea how much Kool-Aid 35 men could and would drink every day, and halfway through the deployment it became clear that it wouldn't last. My solution was to cut back on the drink mix and add some extra sugar. Since nobody ever mentioned it, I can only assume it was fine.

Unquestionably, the biggest mistake I made was not to listen to the supply officer's advice. Preparing almost everything from scratch took all day, and we were in the galley cooking and serving and cleaning from 5:30 in the morning until 7:30 at night. We scheduled breaks for each other, but it was grueling. And the crew didn't really appreciate the difference in the food we made and the food they were used to. In fact, the opposite seemed more true: we heard a lot more complaints than compliments.

"When are you going to serve the captain's favorite meal?" someone asked early on. It was another custom I wasn't aware of, and to be honest, the thought of pandering to that crass curmudgeon did not seem appealing in the least. Even so, we heard almost every day how much he loved meat loaf along with pointed reminders of this mariner's tradition. 

The fact of the matter was that I hadn't planned to make meat loaf, so I didn't actually have the ingredients for it. But when we received word that our job had been completed ahead of schedule and we were going home early, I took a look at our leftover inventory and knew just what to do. The galley was oddly equipped. Because of the extreme danger of shipboard fires, there were no gas burners or other high heat appliances. There was a meat grinder, though. 

And so after breakfast on our last day at sea, I took all the leftovers in the cooler and ground them up into a mixture of vegetables, cold cuts, pasta, and bread, and I added them to the ground beef I had been planning to use for tacos, along with some eggs, tomato sauce, and ketchup. Then I poured the mixture into hotel pans and put them in the convection oven. Next we cooked all the potatoes and threw them in the Hobart mixer with our leftover butter and milk. Finally, we sautéed lots of onions and added beef base and a flour slurry to make gravy. 

Lunch that day was our final meal on board, and at 11:30 am we plopped those hotel pans full of mystery meatloaf and mashed potatoes onto the steam table and started serving. Oh. my. lord! I had never seen those merchant marines so excited. And oh how they ate. They returned for plate after plate piled high with meatloaf and potatoes and smothered in gravy. And when the galley was squared away and we walked on deck to see if land was in sight, we found the crew literally lying around holding their bellies and groaning contentedly.

As we completed our exit paperwork, the supply officer came by. "I heard everything went really well!" she said. In a couple of months, the ship was headed to San Diego, traveling to the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal, and she wondered if any of us had any interest in signing on. 

Our answer? Was a hard no. The shape of that summer was understanding that this was a one-of-a-kind adventure. We knew that we should enjoy the ride, because we would never be there again.