Saturday Night Dinners

Given that it is somewhat difficult to pop down to a cafe or pub when you are living on an Antarctic Station, it is common to run a special event of a Saturday Night. Often these take the form of Saturday Night Dinners - Where the chef makes a little extra effort, and we put out table cloths, block the windows (it is light 24-7 over summer, so the candles on the table would seem a bit superfluous if we didn't do this) and everyone has pretty much a sit-down restaurant-style meal. With almost 60 people on station it is a big job for the chef. People are rostered on for Saturday duties (helping out and cleaning up around the station) and normally this includes one or two extra people to help in the kitchen (along with those who help out anyway just 'cause they are nice). I was rostered on to help setting up for the dinner, so set the table fairly meticulously and put on some smart black pants and white shirt and went around trying to set a fairly high bar for whoever was rostered on to do it next time. I even grabbed a pepper grinder and went around to all the (very closely packed) tables asking if people wanted cracked pepper with their salmon or steak. It was also a bit of a Birthday celebration for Clare (one of our Comms Operators - later known as the golden voice of Davis radio). Anyway, a good time was had by all, and I got plenty of compliments for going the extra mile with the whole waiting on tables thing.