comedy of errors

Talk in the kitchen is that the whole jet idea of flying directly from Edmonton to camp might be scrapped. Well, that is what the common sense people are talking about in the kitchen. As for what the big wig geniuses in the decision making think tank are thinking we can only speculate at what ideas are gonna pop out of their head. Here is the story of groceries...

We were supposed to get our groceries on the Friday. One flight per week because that is what they are doing now. Instead of a minimum of 3 flights a week (M/W/F) with a possibility to fly in little hops of things as required, the powers that be decided to bump it to the one jet from Edmonton on Fridays and that is all. So, this Friday was the 2nd time that a jet was flown up from Edmonton to camp. It had on it people, bags and supplies (groceries and other items for the workshops around camp). It takes off a little later than usual (apparently the captains chair had an issue and needed repairs) and heads up to camp. The pilot over shoots the runway and has to re-throttle the plane to get back in the air making him too low on fuel to make another pass and they have to fly all the way up to Cambridge Bay to refuel before heading back to camp to try again at landing. This adds another 3 hours to their expected landing time. Originally the plane was supposed to land just after our lunch rush so now we are expecting our 6 skids (nearly 10,000lbs) of groceries sometime around supper time. Supper on Fridays is steak night. So we were looking at 3 people (1st and 2nd cook with dishwasher) plus the camp manager putting the groceries away all the while keeping a line stocked with food and cooking steaks to order plus doing dishes for 150 person camp. Oh yeah, easy and no stress there.

Well, turns out that the plane does return back at around 4pm so we are all set and ready to unload our groceries as quickly as possible so that we can get dinner underway as smooth as we can. We are all ready for action when we get the call on the radio that there are no groceries on the plane. They apparently had to do some reshuffling in the cargo area and decided that either the groceries were considered a non-essential item to come into camp or that it was the groceries that were causing the weight problem that caused the jet to overshoot the small runway that we have out here. So, Friday, no groceries and our cooler is looking kind of bare. I am basically looking for salad recipes that call for celery, carrots, cabbage, zucchini and green peppers as the only ingredients.

Saturday we were hoping to get groceries but the weather decided not to co-operate. We had clear blue skies all around us with not a hint of fog or cloud cover. Mainly because the high wind gusts were blowing anything not nailed down away. All day we could hear the wind howling at our back door. No way a plane could land in that so the plane was cancelled. Keep in mind, our fridge is looking incredibly bare at the moment and we have maybe 4 loaves of white and brown bread totally. We have enough rye, raisin and Texas toast (3/4 inch cut white bread) to last us for weeks but not a stitch of sandwich bread around. Kind of hard for the night guy who is making 180 sandwiches a night to make sandwiches for a day with that much bread. Our baker is preparing to bake home made bread for sandwiches the next night if the groceries don't come in. Also caused some problems because we had 4 tomatoes left in the cooler and we had hamburgers on the menu. We were given orders not to put out tomatoes but still had people coming up to us on the line going "how come we don't have any tomatoes for the burgers? I like tomatoes on my burger". Yeah buddy, we all like tomatoes on our burger but when the plane is two days late, you don't get tomatoes..move along.

Sunday we have prime rib on the menu so the 1st cook goes to make Yorkshire puddings and discovers that we are down to 1/2 a case of eggs. We usually go through a case, maybe more, at breakfast time. So we have to make the call, use 1/2 of what we have for Yorkshire puddings or save the rest for breakfast as long as it can hold up. In the end, Yorkshire puddings won.

Think the strategy being that pretty much everyone in the camp that is dependant on things coming in on the plane for survival (mechanics, catering, repairmen) hate this new system cause we get one chance to get everything we can and that is iffy but on the old system the little planes could fly things in anytime that they wanted. Smaller planes can land easier than the big behemoth that they are flying now. The other people like the new one flight a week idea cause that means they get out of here quicker and to their homes faster. No over-nighting in places where they might have before. So, the ones that are dependant on the flights were making it as uncomfortable as possible for those in camp hoping that the complaints might get loud enough so that even the people in the states making the decisions for the camp will have a clue that something is wrong in their decision making process.

So on Sunday we are hoping for groceries cause we are pretty much down to the bare minimum. Our cooler is looking like a bachelor in college fridge, minus the beer and left over pizza boxes. Luckily though, we get groceries on that day. The plane lands and all the groceries are off loaded and put away. The cooks are stressed beyond belief....but we have food. You have no idea how easy it is to make a tossed salad when you have a wide variety of vegetables to put in it instead of just lettuce, green pepper and celery...

That is the story of the groceries. Talk about your nail biting and excitement packed weekend.