Q: Where is the Galaxy 2? How many people are on the rig?
A: We’re located just off Sable Island. There are 160 people out here. We have three cooks working during the day and two at night—the men work 12-hour shifts, so we’re cooking constantly.
Q: is it cafeteria-style?
A: It’s like what you’d see in a fancy hotel buffet. We have a big long steam line, with the food out in chafing dishes. The men line up and order their food, and we serve it as they walk along the line.
Q: What kind of food do you serve?
A: There’s nothing but the best here, dear. Nothing but the best. For breakfast, they can have basically anything they want. For dinner, supper and at midnight, there are three choices, including one HeartSmart choice (like steamed fish, pasta). The menu’s on a weekly rotating basis, Thursday to Thursday.
Q: Do you ever make special meals?
A: Oh my god, yes. Christmas, New Year’s, I wish I had my menus right here so I could tell you everything we serve, but it’s just the best of everything. We always have fresh lobster for Christmas, oysters on the half shell, fresh crab, salmon, filet mignon wrapped in bacon…basically anything you can think of that you’d want to eat for a special occasion, we have that at Christmas and New Year’s.
Q: Where does the food come from?
A: We order it from and it comes out to us by ship once a week in giant freezer containers. Our meat, everything like that, is frozen; baked goods, bread and all that, is baked from scratch right here on the rig. We have a full-time baker on board as well. Our grocery bill is between $20,000-$22,000 a week. At Christmas, that grocery bill is even higher, of course.
Q: Are there any particular challenges to cooking on a rig?
A: Just trying to keep them fed is the biggest challenge. We can’t keep anything in the pans on the steam line—they come up for two-to-three servings at every meal. For example, we had prime rib. We cooked five prime ribs, each weighing between 24-25kg, and we ran out, totally ran out of meat.
Q: Did you have to do any special training to be a cook on an oil rig?
A: The only training I needed was emergency training, what to do in case of fire, how to evacuate. I took the five-day helicopter safety course, where they teach you how to escape the helicopter if it hits the water. But there was no special training for the cooking. I’ve been a sailor since I was 17, working as a cook on the freighters that went through the St. Lawrence Seaway. This is just a progression from that.
This article appears in Jul 20-26, 2006.
