Pita for 450

What does it take to cook for 450 people?

I knew it was massive. We get fed three meals a day here. Each one of the four hundred fifty of us get more food than we could want, three times a day, seven days a week. Just what does it take to provide that for us?

Well, let me tell you. For one meal, it takes:

90 cups of flour
210 grams of yeast
6 gallons of water
1 gallon of olive oil

72 liters of yoghurt
100 onions
40 legs of lamb
20 heads of garlic
1 can of dried mint

4 gallons of rice
1 pound of butter
1 gallon of pasta
750 ml of salt

2 liters of lemon juice
10 gallons of garbanzo beans
2 cups of paprika

12 hours of work
5 other galley staff

and two very dedicated friends.



It was a glimpse into a part of the ship that we don't see often—a part of the ship that works hard, no doubt, and that does so with parsimonious amounts of positive feedback. So, here it is, publicly: Thank you, Peter, Tyrone, Ernest, Patrick, and Michal. Thank you, and Nigel and Margarita, for helping with the meal, and thank you (and Tim and Vandi and Eddie and Freddie and Carlos on Saturdays) for the food. Daily.

Oh, and by the way. In a totally unrelated attempt at shameless reciprocal plugging, we've just been included in a compendium of the 100 best travel blogs. We're about midway down, in the road-less-travelled section. Some of the blogs we read regularly are there too. Check them out, if you've got a lazy, rainy weekend.