Fuel for the Firefighter

Published 2:59 pm Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Wildland firefighters on arduous duty burn between 5,000 and 6,000 calories a day. It’s no wonder they like the meals prepared by North Slope Catering.

Started in Alaska seven years ago, the catering service runs one crew out of Pendleton during fire season. Approximately 20 crew members travel to firecamps throughout the West with four 48-foot semitrailers, a pickup truck and a van.

They arrived around 1 p.m., Aug. 4, at the Trout Creek firecamp in Ukiah, and were busy serving dinner that evening.

“We’re feeding 400 to 500 in this camp,” Manager Aidin Ansari said. “This morning we were ordered to cook for 190 people and 420 showed up. It was a solid hour of mayhem, but we got it all done and nobody waited.”

The kitchen operates around the clock, serving a hot breakfast from 5 to 9 a.m. and a hot dinner from 6 to 10 p.m. The crew makes up hundreds of sack lunches every day.

“As soon as dinner is done serving and the kitchen is cleaned, the breakfast crew is coming in to get started,” Aidin says.

A typical breakfast includes scrambled eggs, pork chops, hash browns, pancakes and a muffin. The breakfast crew can goe through 700 eggs and 120 pounds of frozen hash brown potatoes. Coffee, ice tea and juice are available 24 hours a day.

Dinner on the third day of the Trout Creek fire consisted of a 10-ounce serving of pork loin roast, six ounces of scalloped potatoes, peas and carrots and two wheat rolls. A vegetarian option is available at every meal.

Inside the kitchen trailer Josh Davenport, a chef from Seattle, ladled servings of his pineapple chutney onto each plate. Music by Pearl Jam filled the long, galley-like kitchen, where the meal had been prepared fresh.

After picking up their plates at the hatch in the kitchen trailer, firefighters moved to a long wall tent next door where they cruised the salad bar, beverage area and desserts.

Christie McGuire, who works at a hotel in Seattle during the winter, is in charge of the salads. Every day she prepares gourmet salads to go along with the usual salad bar fruits and vegetables.

“I like fire catering because I’m doing something for a cause and it’s really appreciated,” Christie says. “And I get to see the countryside and sleep in a tent.”

Aidin estimates that it cost about $46 a day to feed a firefighter.

“Firefighters like pretty much everything,” he said. “They work so hard, when they come in they’re so happy to see us and a plate of hot food and the salad bar.”

Spinach salad

Christie McGuire oversees North Slope Catering’s salad bar and prepares daily gourmet salads. Fresh spinach salad with honey mustard dressing is one of her favorites.

If you don’t have a food processor, mince or squeeze the garlic through a garlic press. You can thin honey by microwaving for 5 to 10 seconds.

6 cups fresh baby spinach, torn or cut into bite-size pieces

2 slices bacon, cooked and chopped

1/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

3 cloves garlic, peeled

1/2 cup olive oil

3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

3 tablespoons honey

1/4 cut balsamic vinegar

salt and coarse-ground black pepper to taste

Toss spinach, back and Parmesan cheese in a large bowl. Combine remaining ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Dress salad and serve.

Pineapple chutney

This is Josh Davenport’s fourth fire season with North Slope Catering. He has been a professional chef for 11 years, and developed his own pineapple chutney to serve with pork. It also goes well cold with a green salad.

Josh uses unripe pineapple because it releases more sugars during the slow cooking than ripe pineapple. You can check a pineapple for ripeness by tugging at the center leaves. If they come out easily, the pineapple is ripe. If they stay firmly attached, it is perfect for this chutney recipe.

The alcohol in the rum evaporates during cooking. If you prefer, you can substitute four tablespoons rum flavoring.

1 unripe pineapple, peeled, cored and diced small

1 cup rum

1/2 cup lime juice

1 stick cinnamon

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons chili flakes

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer over low hear for two hours or until most of the liquid is gone. Serve warm over pork.