After snoozing my alarm for the
fifth time, it is hard to believe that it is 8 am. Opening the blinds, I do a
double take between my phone and the outside world. Am I sure it isn’t the
middle of the night? With one streetlight illuminating the vicinity, I can
barely make out the buildings next to us. It is pitch black outside. If we are
lucky today, we might see a slight glimmer of sunlight around noon. With two
cups of coffee in and more cups of tea waiting back at the duplex, Jun and I
embark on one of three trips per day to the aptly named Cakeeater shed. With
the pleasant humming of the instruments ringing in my head, there is one
pertinent question that I must ask Jun, “What’s for dinner?”
A glimmer of Sunlight at 11 AM 12/02/2018
Between deciphering error messages
on the instruments and peeking outside for a glimpse of sunlight, food has
brought us comfort during the darkest days (literally). During the downtime,
I’m watching the food network as I hunch over a laptop analyzing our mass
spectra from the previous day. I make mental notes of my favorite meals before
strolling through the only large grocery store with fresh vegetables in
Utqiagvik. Surprisingly, the Alaska Commercial Company is fully stocked with a
bounty of options. You can even find exotic ingredients like bok choy and okra.
The prices are vastly different than what we would expect from Ann Arbor, MI
but by now we don’t blink twice at grabbing a $7 loaf of bread.
Returning to the duplex with
hundreds of dollars in groceries, the difficult question arises again, what’s
for dinner? There are about 8 charming restaurants in the area but nothing
beats a home-cooked meal. We could make a hearty chili using the instant pot
provided for us, or a taste of Thanksgiving with a green bean casserole, or pancakes
and bacon because we are adults! Though our main concern is keeping our
instruments functional, we have spent the downtime during the past 6 weeks perfecting
our culinary skills. From cooking the perfect 135°F medium rare steak to
watching bread rise, I now feel as comfortable cooking as I do tuning the aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometer (ATOFMS). With 25 mph winds and more
darkness ahead of us, we light a match to turn on the gas stove.
A few of our home cooked meals
Today, I make something that
reminds us both of home: wonton soup. Wrapping tiny spoonfuls of meat into a
paper-thin wrapper brings back nostalgic childhood memories of waking up early
Christmas morning to make wontons with my mom. With the darkness and wind
whispering for us to stay indoors, this will always bring us comfort and
warmth. With this meal, we bring a little bit of home to our new home in
Utqiagvik.
A bowl of hearty, homemade wonton soup
- Jamy Lee, Pratt Lab Ph.D. Student part of the APUN study in
Utqiagvik, AK
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