Makes enough for eight people.
CRANBERRY FOOL
The Russians bring enough provisions for a year from home. Cranberries are an obvious choice because they keep well and are a decent source of vitamin C. A gallon jar of cranberries was my muse for this surprisingly luxurious combination.
1 cups sugar // 1 cups water // 3 cups cranberries // 2 cups whipping cream // 1 tablespoon sugar // cup Grand Marnier
Combine the 1 cups of sugar and water in a mid-sized pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Add the cranberries and return to a boil briefly, then lower to medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries have popped, about 10 minutes. Pour into a small bowl, cover and refrigerate.
When the cranberries have completely cooled, whip the cream in a large bowl until it starts to thicken. Beat in the remaining tablespoon of sugar. Add the Grand Marnier and continue beating until the cream holds stiff peaks.
Gently fold 1 cups of the cranberries into the cream. Alternate layers of cream and reserved cranberries for seams of colour and texture in each glass or bowl. Chill for half an hour before serving.
Makes enough for six to eight people.
CHOCOLATE CAKE TWO WAYS
Chocolate Cake Two Ways
Recipes that require few fresh ingredients are handy even if you aren’t cooking in far-off places. I served this cake dusted with confectioner’s sugar or topped with a thick chocolate butter icing countless times in tree-planting camps on the Canadian Shield. In Antarctica an abundance of whipping cream, a large chunk of chocolate and a gift of Christmas spirits were the inspiration for a pairing that became my signature dessert: Chocolate Cake with Grand Marnier Chocolate Ganache. I tell people this cake doubled as currency for helicopter excursions. In truth the Uruguayan pilots were so hospitable I imagine they would have invited us along even without an offering of sweets.
For the cake
2 cups sugar // 3 cups all-purpose flour // 2 teaspoons each of baking powder and baking soda // 1 teaspoon salt // 6 tablespoons cocoa powder // cup butter // 2 cups hot water // 2 tablespoons vinegar // 1 tablespoon vanilla
Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease two 8-inch round cake pans.
Whisk all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and set aside. Cut the butter into small squares and place in a medium bowl. Pour in the hot water and stir. When the butter has melted, add the vinegar and vanilla and continue stirring until the mixture has cooled slightly. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry and mix well.
Scrape the batter into the cake pans and bake in the centre of the oven. The cakes will be ready when their tops spring back when lightly touched or when a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Set the cakes on wire racks and let them cool completely in their pans before you turn them out to ice.
While you are waiting for them to cool make your butter icing or ganache.
For the chocolate butter icing
cup butter at room temperature // 4 cups icing sugar // 4 to 6 tablespoons milk or water // 5 tablespoons cocoa powder // 2 teaspoons vanilla
Using an electric mixer, cream the butter with half of the icing sugar until the sugar is evenly distributed, then stir in 2 tablespoons of milk or water. Sift the cocoa into the butter and mix well. Add the vanilla, followed by the remaining icing sugar. Beat until smooth. Add enough of the remaining milk or water to make a thick, creamy icing.
This recipe makes a generous amount of icing even by my standards. If you halve each layer horizontally to make four layers you’ll still have enough.
For the chocolate ganache with Grand Marnier
16 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate // 3 to 4 tablespoons Grand Marnier // 2 cups whipping cream
Chop the chocolate into small pieces and combine it with the Grand Marnier in a medium bowl. Pour the cream into a heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat and warm it until it begins to steam and a few bubbles appear on the surface. Remove it from the heat immediately and pour it over the chocolate. Stir gently with a wire whisk to make sure that all the chocolate has come in contact with the hot cream; let it rest for a few minutes then stir slowly until smooth.
To glaze your cakes, place the layers side by side on a wire rack set on a rimmed baking sheet so that any puddles of ganache can be reclaimed. While the ganache is still quite hot, spoon a small amount onto the centre of each layer and use an offset spatula to spread a thin coating across the tops and around the sides of the cakes, then place them in the freezer for 5–10 minutes. This is called the crumb coat because it prevents little particles of cake from messing the surface of your icing. As the crumb coat sets, stir the ganache often so that it cools evenly—you want it to be barely warm, but still fluid enough to pour.
You’re going to make about three coats with the ganache. Remove the layers from the freezer. Pour an equal amount of ganache onto the centre of each; smooth it out towards the edges and around the sides using a spatula. Set the layers aside in a cool place to let the glaze firm up a bit and repeat this process until you have used up most of the ganache.
To reclaim the ganache, gently scrape any chocolate that may have dripped onto the baking sheet back into the bowl. Place over a pot of barely simmering water and stir until just melted. Continue using to coat the cakes.
When you have created a nice thick, even surface on each cake, settle one on top of the other on a plate and use any remaining ganache to smooth the seam and finish the top and sides of the cake to your liking.
For a really decadent cake, spread marmalade on top of the bottom layer before the crumb coat or finish with chocolate curls or shavings.
Radio Sasha, when asked if the cake was good: “Yes, it was good. It was big.”
Makes enough for ten to twelve people, or two pilots or one radio operator.
Washing up after dinner at the winter quarters, Cape Denison, Frank Hurley. 1911–1914
{Washing up after dinner at the winter quarters / Call no. Home and Away – 36823}
“Sunday April 13, 1947
We were not able to go ashore today because the ice was packed into the beach. Finn had a marvelous flight . . . [McClary] and Woody broke into some of the E rations . . . Anywhere they can make trouble they do.
The two Bobs on Neny Island seem to be getting along fine. Jennie has learned to make water with the evaporator. Jorge thinks he is in love with her and follows her around everywhere until now people are beginning to talk about it.”
—Jackie Ronne, Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition, Stonington Island, 1947. She and Jennie Darlington were the first American women to overwinter in Antarctica
EQUALITY LIBERTY INFINITY
Carol
Deeply regret delay only just managed to reach hut effects gone but lost my hair you are free to consider your contract.
—Douglas Mawson telegram to his fiancé Paquita Delprat
Deeply thankful you are safe warmest welcome awaiting your hairless return regarding contract same as ever only more so.
—Delprat’s reply telegram to Mawson
Antarctic explorer, scientist and conservationist, Sir Douglas Mawson’s 1911–1913 journey across unexplored coastal regions was “probably the greatest story of lone survival.” Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition party celebrated Midwinter Dinner on June 22, 1912, eating noisettes of seal and awaiting the sun’s return. They faced 300 km per hour winds. Mawson, Xavier Mertz and Lt. B.E.S Ninnis left the group to explore far eastern Antarctica. Ninnis disappeared into a deep crevasse with a sledge of supplies and Mertz likely perished of hypervitaminosis from eating dog liver. Mawson miraculously returned, near-death and unrecognizable. He had left Australia December 11, 1911, expecting to see his fiancé 15 months later. Mawson returned in February 1914 and soon after married Delprat.
He wrote The Home of The Blizzard after his return. Mawson was an early advocate for Antarctic research stations. He also left an extreme Antarctic menu pl
an including dog and skua.
Antarctica transformed me. I became braver and certain I wanted to work on global justice. I felt fortunate to experience something grand that made me feel cosmically tiny.
Soon after Antarctica I went to Africa’s “first world war” in the Congo (then Zaire) with a medical humanitarian group. I also worked in Southern Sudan where people were dying from a famine caused by political action, not only drought or a lack of food. I met people who had coped, survived and even hosted a community dinner to celebrate an impending marriage. But I saw too many freshly dug graves. Never before have I wanted to stay in and leave a place simultaneously. I want to be a witness of our times.
I encountered a South African woman caring for her deceased children’s children in a community ravaged by HIV/AIDS. Documenting how her community grieved and responded to the crisis, she said, “If you don’t write it down, maybe it didn’t happen.”
Antarctic explorers had to expect suffering as they chose to go to an inhospitable place. There as everywhere we are at nature’s mercy and are reliant on one another. We are also resilient. The world isn’t divided neatly into humanitarians and those who exploit. As I felt in Antarctica, I also felt when working with some of the world’s most vulnerable peoples that we have to do more than ‘do no harm.’
GETTING THE COLOURS DOWN
FEBRUARY 16–29, 1996
{Sandy Nicholson}
It’s the same at all remote work sites—as if you belong to everyone.
Everyone and no one.
FEBRUARY 16, 1996
WT11:30 p.m. Rain and wind all day long and still now. Leaky windows. Haven’t had weather this bad since January; still, it doesn’t seem to bother this team. Sean says the couple from California wants to stay for another camp. If only they’d been here a month ago. You have to admire their dedication, but it would mean working on the cleanup through our days off. Lena turned green when Sean broke the news and I can tell he’s completely knackered by the way he vented to me, “They are not my friends; they are my job.” The things you think, but never say. Hope the phones are down at Frei and they can’t switch their flights. Sean has to shift his focus to the logistics of the loadout: ask the Chileans if we can use their front-end loader; confirm with the captain we’ve bound the fuel pipe properly, and we all need to experience more of King George.
Busy again, though managed a visit in Diesel with Sasha and Volodya while doing laundry. They were especially animated today, as if to apologize for all that silliness at the beginning of the month, as if to say they missed me. Finally got most of the soot out of my aprons and oven mitts and made a sauna appointment for tomorrow at 4:00. Hope to get my own laundry done then. Must remember to give Lena something for the Korean fête and have her arrange a recipe exchange. Wish I could go—feel a little like Cinderella.
FEBRUARY 17, 1996
Cloudy, but pleasant. Walked to Stoney Bay to deliver treats to the volunteers. They were laughing and joking. I can’t believe the progress they made around camp—5 barrels of mixed waste. That’s more than twice the amount any other team has collected. Rain suits. If only all the other teams had brought rain suits.
Hiked new way home way up high in the hills above camp. Trying to get everything from this place—wanting to stay—the idea of overwintering is tempting. Maybe I’ll camp at Stoney one night on the next break, take in all that emptiness? In the end Lena got me a seat for the ride to the Korean base, but I was in the middle of baking and missed the flight. Zuniga invited Lena and me to Artigas for a party tonight—made it clear we won’t be the only women. A psychologist, a meteorologist, a chemist and an architect arrived on the last plane.
Late, late.
What a shaker! Singing; guys jamming on guitars; beating on overturned 50-gallon barrels; dancing. Even with the new arrivals from Uruguay we’re token females, but it’s safe and we immediately know it, feel respected and somehow accepted. It’s the same at all remote work sites—as if you belong to everyone. Everyone and no one. The idea of someone at home or not.
2:00 a.m. Chilean time/3:00 a.m. Uruguayan time. Party still on. So dark now—a month ago this would have been first light. Classical Spanish guitar serenade from the guy riding in the back-seat on the drive home. From up in the hills Frei’s twinkling lights make the Chilean base seem more like a quaint village and I understand why Zuniga likes it. It must bustle when all their wives and children are there. Funny man. He acts as if there is something going on between us especially tonight with the Uruguayans—reaching for my hand, cutting in on the dance floor, and playing with my hair. I don’t have a clue where it’s coming from. All innuendo, best to let it pass, let everyone keep their dignity.
FEBRUARY 18, 1996
Exhausted today. January weather has returned. Constant rain and wind. So hard to walk up the hill. Great debrief with the group of volunteers. They’ve been a real boost for morale with the added benefit of finally having a geologist on the team, Jeffrey. Think we all learned something from him on our hikes and now I know the names of all my rocks. Wish I’d asked him what makes some jasper red and some green. Some talent on the football pitch as well at our match in the Chilean gym. Uruguay took Bellingshausen 22–2, but good to see men in shorts. Dinner afterwards at Canada House: Quique, Jose, from Uruguay and the VIEW team—Ilya, Sad Vlad, Dima, and Hilltop Sasha. Party fun with guitar-playing and one of the volunteers on the harmonica. Up very late again.
FEBRUARY 19, 1996
4:00 a.m. wakeup for 5:00 a.m. pickup by Petrov. Ship late. Tolerant but tired volunteers. Mist and rain. Spent lounging, breaking KGI rules with Sean. Poquito sleep. Mail finally! Lots of writing, relaxing and reading the magazines Carol sent. Ah the Vogue spring collection and The New Yorker. Wish Carol could swing coming for the last camp; think she’d be proud of our progress. Early night at last and good sleep until Quique let himself in to return my flashlight. Startled, not scared.
Whale bones, the Drake side of King George Island, 1996
{Wendy Trusler}
The Drake side, 1996
Camp 14 Debris Collection (Feb. 14–19)
Stoney Bay Area 13: 1 barrel mixed
Bellingshausen Area 8–10 and 12a: 5 barrels mixed
I’ve had a lifelong romantic attachment to the Antarctic as well as an interest in the scientific work. This project provided me with a real physical experience of the life of dedicated people working in unusual conditions.
—Volunteer Geoffrey, South Africa
FEBRUARY 20, 1996
Laundry pretty much the whole day after leisurely morning. Visit from Quique to apologize for frightening me in the middle of the night—odd choice to drop by with a load of jeering soldiers in the truck bed. Clean up Canada House. Laundry. Most satisfying. I think my clothes are finally clean and the bathtub is at last making bubbles.
Talk with Volodya Driver at Diesel was really unsettling. Insisting that women at stations are a problem, saying Lena and I are a problem. Wow; he really knows how to cut through when he wants to—so offensive, almost hurtful. I think we know how to behave and have done so. And then he went on to tell a story about the Arctic where there was one woman on the base. A spurned lover killed himself and two other men got in a gunfight over her. Glad Sean was with me. Told V if I’m a problem, I don’t have to visit. He claims I’m not a problem to him anymore because he took his heart in his hand, that he was in the Arctic for six years before coming to Bellingshausen and is more accustomed to being alone than some of the others. Had to resist reminding him that he swung the first punch earlier this month. Assured by Sean and radio hut guys afterwards we are not a problem. Sad Vlad and Lena up to Canada House after dinner. Shared last bottle of wine as I made hairclips. I like the one made from rusty bits best.
Patience Camp, 1914
“The food now is pretty well all meat,” Greenstreet wrote. “Seal steaks, stewed seal, penguin steaks, stewed penguin, penguin liver . . . The cocoa has been finished for some time an
d the tea is very nearly done.”
—Caroline Alexander, The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition, 1998
The more laundry you have, the more time you have for tea—On laundry days I lost myself in a whole cleaning ritual. I’d line up basins and pails to soak my oven mitts, tea towels, tablecloths, and aprons while I was in the sauna and drop them in the washing machine during my bath. If there was lots of laundry I might hit the sauna and stream twice before running anything through the wringer.
Volodya Driver always let me hang laundry by the generator fans and sometimes he helped. In between loads we’d have tea in the watchman’s room. There was always someone willing to put on the kettle and clear the chair beside the desk. A gang would often appear as if they’d been tipped off, and snacks from the kitchen would follow. All those men huddling close—that room became our hearth.
Sasha Diesel serving tea in the watchman’s room, Bellingshausen, 1996
{Wendy Trusler}
I have records of the many conversations I had with Volodya. Quick sketches on scrap paper: a tent by the side of a river to show me he liked camping (“kemping”); a woodland to show me he liked foraging for wild mushrooms (“lesnyje gryby”); a guy with a fishing pole to show me he liked fishing (“ribalka”) and drawings of a woman (me) with children clinging to her. Some days my heart would break the way he opened his for mine. I’d volley back a light and bright drawing of a woman paddling solo and wondered if he thought I was a bit dim the way I just didn’t understand. I hope he never thought I was heartless.
The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning: A Polar Journey Page 14
