Some things still come in handy
When we shifted here to Camperdown the child bride started teaching at one of the local schools , where as part of their fund raising they do a " Fathers Day Brekkie " every year. The first year I was co-opted by , you know who , to help out . After watching two of the male staff absolutely going backwards on the fried eggs , :roll: I asked to help out . So for the last three years I've made it onto the front page of the local paper because of my amazing trick of being able to crack eggs and get them onto the grill one handed , with both hands :shock: Wonder where I learnt that trick :wink: Probably something to do with "MMOORRE EGGGS " yelled through the Main Galley from the servery Guess what I'm doing tomorrow morning 8)

IT is surprising the number of people who are amazed at that little trick

Yes Jaffa the things we learnt in pussers amaze some of these ordinary folk christ i would have thought that everyone could crack an egg one handed . I too cook at the footy club barby and when we do the egg and bacon sangers you guessed it i'm the one they turn to to crack the eggs . All of the lessons in pussers i have put into good use in civvie street from the power of command training to even the marching drills. They have all come in handy . Did you ever wonder just how many eggs you cracked while in pussers or how many spuds you peeled?, be bloody millions I'd reckon . Plenty of us white mafia can well remember our days on the Melbourne in the Main when CAG was embarked doing breaky all those fried eggs and both egg fryers going flat out one was the cacker and the other was the getter out Steve Mcleod was my Kellick in those days . And it was a bit of a perk cooking the eggs and me and Wayne Mchail always stuck our hand up for it it was better than serving on the line . For those that can't remember Wayne he was a character alright and used to get dressed up as Captain Egg Man with a black garbage bag as a uniform, we had some fun and we bounced of each other - Tex Watson was the chief and he just shook his head at some of our antics . Best wishes all Quinny

The thing is that I can't crack an Egg using two hands. I use both hands with one egg in each. The only time I use two hands is AFTER I have cracked the Egg and am seperating the White from the Yolk. (2)

Spuds !!!Spuds!!!!!!!! Cerberus circa 67-68 , its Friday 0830 after pay day , you are duty watch and eye-ing spuds in the veg locker , it's a few degrees above freezing . You cut yourself but you don't know it ,because your fingers are too numb from the cold . All you have on is a white T / shirt and a Foulie . You are freezing cold and hung over and Duty Weekend and just want to survive the day . Darryl Saxon walks into the Veg locker , looks into the peelings bin and says , " Start again , you are eye-ing them too thick!!" Yeah ! Done Spuds !! :evil: :evil:

spuds
Can remember that jaffa. In charge of a watch main galley,got sprung eye-ing too thick,had to take 2 gash bins full, up to the school and got a flogging . Had to take them back, and turn them into french fries, was a great start to dirty weekend. Never forgot that. Slim pirate

Back to the eggs tho , still can not stand the smell of hot peanut oil !!Really brings back nightmares!!

Better they were cooked in oil instead of gamlen. Bubbly eggs yum yum

re spuds this is true story, can't remember personnel involved but so funny,(not for cook involved)it was at 'Tross and the night cook had somehow fxxxxx up a couple of meat boats full of chips, Chief throws a wobbly and makes the poor bastard crumb the lot before he knocks off,you can imangine the banging and crashing and the verbal ,after he finishes and pisses off. Chief is asked what he wants to do with these lovely crumbed chips, throw 'em in the bin, Chief Cooks, they never ever ceased to amaze me

re the eggs on Melb in the Phillipines, how many of you remember having to crack eggs into a duff bowl before transfering to fryer as every second one was so rotten it nearly knocked your head off, but we kept serving em up and the troops all survived,I THINK!

Yes Bob that was the go, crack them in the bowl and if they smelt ok then ya used them plenty of times. Some of the stuff you got up top left a lot to be desired. I well remember being in a place called Medan and the starvo had ordered 100 chooks, well we were just about to sail; and 5 blokes on push bikes fronted up with all the chooks about 20 on each bike . Freshly plucked with heads still on and covered in flies - bloody lovely, this was on the Vendetta in '73. Any way the Starvo took delivery of the chooks and we put them in meat boats and when we got to sea they were over the side quick smart . Regards Quinny

I learned to crack an egg in each hand at the same time at Nirimba. Of course you dont get it right the first time and who gives a s***, if it's the apps who have to eat them anyway :-) Ah Gamelin. We used to put wilting parsley in it to stiffen it up prior to garneshing. Little did I realise that some people eat the garnish...oops!!!! Btw, anyone work at Nirimba when they had the Malaysian apps there? They got out of scullery duty because we cooked pork (No pork, no pork,, Malaysian). We told them no pork was on the menu and we laced every dish with the stuff. The had a rec space in an old nissan hut and one of the cooks threw in a leg of pork one night and they went nuts, diving out the windows etc.....

I remember one time on the Vamps that we did a trip to Fiji. Since there are no cows there we got goats milk instead. Well it was off and I remember 2/3 of the ships company were shitting through the eye of a needle at 100 paces. I didnt get crook and had to work 24's for about 3 days. Not fun.

Orpheus Island
I went to Orpheus Island last week and I had a ball. I was cooking for 50 people with 2 other chefs. It was part voluntary and part payment. I had to wake up at 7 -730am and help prepare the lunch, dinner,ect. We got over there on the roughest day of the week and we were squashed up because of the equipment the guests were bringing. I was at the O.I research station with a whole bunch of photographers and I normally take just one photo of everything but these guys take 10 or so. The wonders of digital photography. There was a party everynight after all the work was done. These guests were learning about digital technology, printers and computer programmes. Very fasinating. Anyone can be a volunteer and it is only a 1/2 hour trip from the mainland.

Bull Straughan
Had a few beers with the old Bull Straughan (ex WOCK) tonight at the club I told him about the current thread on Spud Machines etc... He told me that when he was on the Sydney in Sembawang that he was in the duty watch and in the morning he mustered into the galley to prepare breaky and he got the job of peeling the spuds in the old Hobart machine for lunch. He was hungover and turned on the machine in preparation to fill it with spuds and was met with a blood curdling squealing and screaming coming from the spud machine....He turned it off straight away and opened the top to be met by the remains of a monkey that some boofhead had put in the spud machine for safe keeping after returning on board in the early hours of the morning...needless to say the offender owned up and was dispatched to scrub out the spud machine before being trooped up before the officer of the day.....Wonder what the charges were ?