Hungry for details of my shipboard life?

Last night was not a picture taking activity (although I posed for one, so this belief was not unanimous).  Today, however, words will fail to do justice to the incredible spread the dining crew put on for a select group of Charlottesville faculty, staff, and partners.

Charlottesville always contributes a relatively large number of voyagers, because everyone in Charlottesville knows about Semester at Sea and because UVA has a very generous approach to faculty leave and salary for those aboard.  (Not so for staff.  I will be using all my accumulated vacation and taking personal leave.)  Our academic dean is from Charlottesville this semester, and she kindly invited all of us to dine in Classroom 9, which is set up for "special dining" for dinner. 

Special dining is a chance for our talented chefs to shine and a grand place to celebrate a birthday or other event.  It's also a way to wine and dine the VIPs, so the mere working stiffs are usually not invited to rub elbows on the table with ship

It is, however, a steal.  This surprises me.  Other things on the ship are wildly expensive, like a $2.00 can of Coke.  But you can order a jumbo shrimp for 20% of what it costs at a hotel affair.  Tonight we had a pre-port appetizer night, a plate of Japanese appetizers for $5, and a theme drink for $3.50.  Special dining is available to anyone for a mere $29.95, just make a reservation and they will happily charge it.

Our everyday ship food feeds 1000 people and is just fine.  We're 10 days from Hilo and the lettuce is still crunchy.  With grated carrots and cucumbers, it's passable as salad.   There's fresh fruit at every meal.   (Underripe pears, nectarines, and plums, but also oranges and today grapes.  The bananas made a grand exit with chilled banana soup.)  Quite a variety of soups, often last night's vegetables cut smaller and put into stock of some kind.  Vegetables in and out of a sauce.  In addition to carrots, tomatoes, and broccoli, there's cauliflower, a variety of beans, eggplant, pumpkin, and other squashes.  There's always naked pasta and a sauce, roasted potatoes with a rotating set of names, and usually rice with tiny amounts of something that allow it to be named something new.  Stir fry, paella, pilaf, risotto…  I see students eating lunches that consist of pasta, potatoes, and rice, no sauce. 

Always, peanut butter and jelly.  Morning, noon, and night.  Great big trays of it.  I read 40 pounds of peanut butter a day.  That's more than half an ounce a person, which means a whole lot of people are eating it every day.  I do wonder what these folks are going to eat when they go onland to, say, Burma.  Taco night is a highlight for them, but I found it the least appealing of our dinners so far.  I much prefer the ethnic dishes like dhal and curry.

When you cook for a thousand people, the logistics alone are daunting.  The ship's kitchen also provides vegetarian meals, labels all dishes for gluten, dairy, garlic, and meat, and prepares individual meals for passengers with allergies. 

And then there is the special dining experience.  We started with hors d'oeuvres, including hardboiled eggs with salmon roses instead of yokes.  Then waiters came to place our napkins in our laps and give us menus.  Choice of shrimp cocktail or crepes filled with stir-fry vegetables, soup, Greek salad, choice of chicken breast or salmon, choice of banana split or ganache frosted chocolate cake. The presentation was art.  The shrimp were butterflied into poses.  The Greek salad was a circle of cucumber slices, each with a perfect cube of feta, and a center of pepper, onion, and slivers of cucumber—a little flower of a salad. The meat was tender, the side dishes hot.

I came on this voyage figuring I would either gain or lose 20 pounds.  It's pretty clear which direction I am heading.