Eddie, the baker, is on vacation for the next two weeks…and this being the volunteer organization it is, well, I guess I’ll be covering that position the next two weeks as well as mine.

We are down a few people in the galley but a few more are coming in. Although you lose a lot in transition because of the experience that just left and the new training that needs to be done for new crew.

I fully expect to enjoy myself baking though…I’ll be taking pictures and discussing technique when I get a chance.

Well we have finally done it!  We have the cheese, extra pans, time, and oven space all at the same time so now we can finally get a ‘Pizza! Day’ underway…

Last Friday night we had pizza on the menu and I made sure I had enough crusts not to run out!  We make our own crust and par bake them beforehand, freeze them till we need them, then pull them just hours before we use them.

Another excellent way to try and get that ‘pizza oven’ quality crust is to take & make the par baked crusts into a pizza by adding sauce and all the toppings you want then use a peel, tray, or rack to slide your pre made pizzas into the oven.  But don’t put them on pans!  Cook them directly on the racks of a preheated oven…makes for a great crispy and chewy crust.

If you have steam wells or heated chafing dish holders (or more commonly known as a buffet line) we cut the pizzas and slid them on the chafing dish lids.  Because then you can put the sliced pizzas directly over the heat source without making the pizza soggy by actually putting them in chafing dishes.  Another good tip is to slide the pizza off of the peel, tray, and/or rack (after taking it out of the oven) slide it straight onto your stainless steal table and quickly cut it with a cheap round wheel cutter, then slide it back on the lid.  You can use a cutting board if you want, because I know some would argue dulling the pizza cutter or damaging the table (its stainless steel commercial quality, you aren’t going to damage this table.  We clean/disinfect the table before getting started and at the rate we cut and slide pizzas back on the lids your going to have a hard time with that cutting board staying in place or slowing down the ‘flow’ of the work.  Plus we have found cutting fresh pizza on the table with a cheap round pizza cutter has the highest success of a ‘full’ cutting at ‘top’ speeds.

Pizzas done in 10 minutes at 350 Fahrenheit.

The way we come up with these creative ideas that work is by thinking beyond ‘this is how we used to do it’  and/or  ‘we can’t do it because we don’t have the proper equipment’ …you would be amazed how much we do with what we have.  And each one on our Galley team has contributed to ideas that have become possible.

Couple of delicious pictures for you to think about…

I was reminded today by a question/comment form that was filled out, that it has been a long time since we have had Spaghetti with meat sauce or bolognese.

In an earlier post this year I talked about weevils (here and here) and how they are damaging all our grain products. They were so far advanced in the actual spaghetti noodles that it was creating gray ‘dust’ where they once fed on the whole pasta.

2 Months ago we had select pasta left.

1 Month ago we had no pasta left except for Couscous and Rice Noodles.

I wish we would hurry up and get our pasta we ordered. Its coming on a future container. I am ready for some spaghetti as well as all those other pasta shapes and dishes we will be able to once again created weevil free!

Its days like today that make me feel like packing in this blog.

The big boss man (my boss) is gone for an LOA. But that really doesn’t change a whole lot for me…work goes on, people keep eating. Its just that I have another blog that is more of a joint venture with my wife (tyroneandstephanie.com) where we both post thoughts and opinions on our days whether they be personal or work related. So I find myself split wanting to post this material over at the other blog because really thats what I do…but then I think, no, I need to have different new material. Wait. I don’t have anything new. Or - Wait, I don’t have time to post new material to each blog.

What also fuels these thoughts is the decision for our organization to start putting everything on a ‘navigator’ of sorts, so our organization is connected worldwide (using confluence) where now everyone looks at that for my weekly menu. Except of course for you outside folks that cannot ’see’ our international ‘confluence‘ website.

We also use it to update the FAQS (frequently asked questions) or just to share internal information about our departments that are not open for the general public.

SO these things really defeat the purpose of 50% of this blog now, and another percentage of it can be carried by my other blog (you know Rants, Raves, Reviews, and general knowledge of my day to day).

Yes, I am sure as some of you know it takes time and effort to keep more than one blog rolling with fresh material. I’ll keep you posted.

Wow, a lot is happening in the galley right now.

Our new twin convection oven has landed (literally from the cargo hold that dead ends in our galley) and now they are working on getting it put in properly. And bolted to the floor since we are on a ship.

Part of our wall paneling was put back together (where previous water leaks were suspected coming from the pipes in the walls) so that has helped the galley look better.

Our dumbwaiters are being fixed (lifts/elevators) for food. One is extremely hard to open and close and the other has a slide door jammed. Its mechanical.

We still have square holes in the floor where a water leak is still being tracked down. The water actually comes up thru the floor. Right now a small water pump is siphoning it out and dumping it into one of our drains.

Three of our six electric hot plates are now operational again after it was discovered a breaker flipped.

And some smaller stuff like hand dryers have been worked on.

[oh yeah, my boss is leaving for awhile *PARTY TIME* and we'll miss him dearly]

Yep, all this week. Work goes on, the food keeps cooking…and sometimes blogging has to take the ‘back burner’. (pun intended)

Some people who don’t know any better will buy this taco sauce and think, ‘Man those Americans eat the nastiest stuff’ (because I have only seen this stuff in Europe). This IS NOT anything similar to our Taco Sauce except maybe that it has some tomato product in it.

On another ship I worked on they ruined ‘Mexican Night’ by putting this stuff out. Everyone would come along and heap it up on their delicious nachos, tacos, burritos, enchiladas…or whatever and then it would just ruin the taste of the dish.

On this ship we specifically asked for NONE of this, but somehow they managed to squeeze it on our container again. But thankfully its not that much and we just put it out at mealtimes as a ‘condiment’ not taco sauce.

Maybe you are thinking, ‘What’s so bad about it?’ well lets just look inside the ingredients list and see…

First it starts of like a simple syrup, sugar first then water. Then, uh-oh, it looks like we are starting to build a sweet BBQ sauce (vinegar, tomato paste, paprika, salt). And then…what the heck is all this stuff? I can make taco sauce from stewed tomatoes out of a can tastier and with way less ingredients than this, and certainly NOT using all those particular ingredients.

Whats even funnier is that further down the label it says,

‘Pictures do not reflect ingredients of this product’

(emphasis mine).

They seriously need to quite insulting people worldwide by calling it ‘taco sauce’.

Blah…