My wife often asked me for a story from the time of my several rotations overseas.

When we think of large venues in conventional terms we think of weddings, charitable functions, and even remote camps for the sheer size of a sitting, service with high volumes that need to be completed within a short duration.

My work overseas was for a military remote camp that would at each meal or service over 12,000 troops. This is a massive undertaking that takes many teams to master the service.

I cannot get into specifics but it is safe to say that once you work in this setting as a chef you have the background to work anywhere.

The environment was tough, and hotter than the hottest kitchen but just knowing you fed from your hand to a troopers mouth instilled a sense of pride even in my work. Regularly I would venture out with full metal jacket, helmet and protective gear, including frozen water bottles to hydrate to shop for a number of items required for a meal service.

Other challenges endured to ensure our rations were fresh, we constantly rotated the supplies but enevitably we had too much close to end dates to serve, but although constantly challenged, we constantly used our best methods to minimize food waste. (I want to address food waste in a future post, so stay tuned.)

One such rotation brought us the gift of an entire Seacan of Brie…Brie??? Really Brie? Yes it was Brie. I love Brie, it’s one of the best, it can be decadent, fresh, baked, as stuffing as topping…. Ah what else? Exactly what else, a Seacan is massive!!!! We had to become very creative as the “Brie” had a short freshness date, yes the best before was only a number of days away.

Maybe be you can look up Brie recipes and come up with enough recipes to feed 12,000 troops 3600 kilograms. Oh I’m laughing now but I have to say we enjoyed the best Brie soup, I have ever made in my life. Probably because my life depended on it. Even though this work experience happen several years ago, I am still in touch with some of the team of chefs and kitchen help that was made up from persons from all over the world.

As a side note our creation was incentive to have troops to enjoy fresh cold water that was a premium item amougst the troops. We had weather haven tents that used insulating material to keep the tents warm or cool, we had a lot to spare and so we created an insulated cooler for the frozen water we bottled on site. Troops would go out on patrols with food rations and frozen water for the day. A small effort that proved to be well received.

Once I finished the story my wife was fast asleep, good night!

Watch for more stories on this blog, from these years in my resume.