Fic: Recipes from Pegasus pt1

[anyanka_eg]

Title: Recipes from Pegasus
Rating: PG
Pairing: Subtle McShep and obvious Teyla/Lorne
Spoilers: All 5 seasons
Summary: After the stargate program was de-classified in 2010 and the initial furore died down, the book that captured the zeitgeist of the entire planet, tapping in to the almost insatiable curiosity for all things related to the Stargate Program, was Recipes from Pegasus. It was an accessible way for everyone to understand a little bit more about the people who had spent the last eight years living in an alien galaxy, fighting to keep Earth safe. It's author, Grace Mallory, the head chef of the Atlantis mission became a household name even though she appeared on a very few TV shows during the publicity tour. More importantly her stories about the daily lives of the people of Atlantis made them appear much more human than all the high octane TV specials did.

Note: this is an unformatted version (i.e. without colours and pictures)


 

RECIPES FROM PEGASUS

 

A COLLECTION OF RECIPES FROM THE ATLANTIS MESS

BY

GRACE MALLORY

 

 

For everyone in Atlantis

 

 

 

Published by Anyanka Books

 

Copyright © Grace Mallory 2011

Photographs copyright © Stargate Command 2011

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except brief excerpts for the purpose of review, without written permission of the publisher.

 

 

First published on Earth 2011 by

Anyanka Books

Cheyenne Mountain,

Colorado Springs, CO, USA

 

 

Anyanka Books is a wholly owned subsidiary of Stargate Command Reg. No. 347682

Design and Art Direction: Elly Gausden

Additional art work: Sulien

Cookery Assistant: Corporal Bud Martin

Editorial Assistant: Walter Harriman

 

Library of Congress Cataloging - in - Publications

Data on file with publisher

 

ISBN - 10: 1-74008-485-2

 

Printed and bound by Anyanka-eg in the UK

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Forward by Dr Rodney McKay

I'm sure that there are some people, petty, jealous people, who didn't think I would ever do something like this. I'm sure they'll tell you that I hate to share the credit on publications, and I'd have to agree with them. I do hate it if I did all the work and they are just there because it's politically expedient for their names to appear at the top of some of the most important work the world has ever seen. I think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to hate.

I am however a big enough person to happily share credit with someone who has done the work.

Grace Mallory is someone who has definitely done the work, not only by writing this book but by being there day in day out with us in Atlantis and feeding us no matter what was happening. She even seems to mostly remember that I'm deathly allergic to citrus. When the Wraith were besieging the city one of the only good things I remember was a great not-beef stroganoff and perfectly cooked rice. Within an hour of landing the city on M35-117 there was wonderful hot soup and fresh bread in the mess, something that I don't think any of us really ever thanked the kitchen staff for at the time.

There were a lot of people in the military hierarchy that didn't understand why Elizabeth insisted on bringing a civilian chef on an expedition to another galaxy. I will admit that I had my doubts too (even if at the time I backed her to the hilt purely on principle) but this just goes to show that Elizabeth was a leader of great insight and forethought, and that those other idiots who doubted her were probably the same ones who thought we could beat the replicators by a show of force. And we all know how well that went.

The fact that most of the Atlantis expedition are still sane is, I think, more down to Grace than any shrink the SGC ever sent us. I'm not doubting the benefit of “talking therapies” (although I'll never, ever admit to them being a science), it's just that years of eating over-cooked native vegetables and rubbery mystery meat are enough to push anyone over the edge. Trust me, I lived on that diet in Siberia.

Grace's 'office' (actually her test kitchen) is the one office in the whole of Atlantis that I don't mind spending time in. There's always something to eat, usually something sweet, and that makes most days seem better. She's also almost always got a supply of coffee long after the rest of us have run out and as long as you're willing to sit, talk and at least pretend to relax a little she'll let you have a cup. Even I eventually had to accept that there was no way to get access to her supply (not without a trip to the brig and/or withdrawal of desserts) and I've learned to sit down and chat for a while if I want a cup. I still think it's patently unfair that the kitchen gets a larger supply than the rest of us but my protests have fallen on deaf ears.

The room has an strangely rustic feeling, totally at odds with the rest of Atlantis, and that seems to make it easier to sit for a while and forget that outside the room the Pegasus galaxy has a million ways to make you die before breakfast. There's a big wooden Athosian-made kitchen table and chairs, shelves of herbs and spices, recipes stuck to the refrigerator door and usually something bubbling on the stove or baking in the oven. It's like other people's kitchen's from when I was a kid, the ones I saw on TV that were nothing like my family's.

I'm not the only one who enjoys Grace's office either. There are certain people who can't seem to do their paper work unless they're sat at the table with a glass of milk and a few cookies. Grace just carries on with her work, humming to herself as she cooks something wonderful (or at least not appalling) out of the most recent trade items. It's like some bizarre domestic scene with a forty-ish kid doing his home work at the kitchen table while his mom cooks dinner. Except I don't think the 'kid' in this case ever sat at a table while his mother cooked when he really was a child.

Recently there have been a lot of people stopping by Grace's kitchen and offering advice or trying to get their favorite recipes included in the book. I've had to chase more than a few of my scientists out of there and back to the labs because keeping the city afloat is a little more important than their pathetic attempts to achieve some kind of recognition. Just because they'll never have what it takes to make it in science doesn't mean they get to waste their time badgering Grace into including their favorite recipe for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Of course there are some of us who didn't have to ask for their favorite recipes to be included here, even if there are a few rather embarrassing stories attached to them. I admit that my skills don't lie in baking but I can cook a few basics, especially following the recipes that Grace writes down for me, and I think that even the most inexpert of cooks should be able to follow the recipes here.

 

Rodney McKay, PhD PhD

Chief Science Officer, Atlantis Expedition, 2011

 

Introduction

When Richard Woolsey first approached me to write this book I was equally stunned and baffled. Why on Earth (literally) would anyone want to read about the things we eat out here on Atlantis when there are so many other great stories that need to be told? To be honest I think Richard was as confused as I was but a request from the IOC is a request from the IOC, so he made it. Now that I've finished writing it, and seen the enthusiasm people have for making sure their favorite recipe is included, I guess that who ever made the decision to ask for this book knew what they were doing.

There's an old adage about an army marching on its stomach and I'd like to think that food my staff and I have served over the years has made Atlantis a bearable place to be. Oh, I know you've all seen pictures and film of the place and it looks beautiful, like you can't imagine being anything other than constantly excited by the city. Well, it's like that some of the time, but there are times when all you want is a real, poached hen's egg and some honest to god bacon. There are times that you can't remember why you agreed to step through wormhole to another galaxy where there's man-eating space vampires and malfunctioning alien technology trying to kill you.

Of course there are times too when you're so happy that it makes everything else seem like a minor inconvenience, and most of those occasions, at least for me, seem to be associated with food. Judging by the requests that I get for certain dishes, both old favorites from Earth and new ones from the Pegasus galaxy, I think most people find the same enjoyment in the food and good company to be had in the mess. I'm just glad I was given the opportunity to be the one providing the catering for these precious moments.

I know there were a lot of raised eyebrows when Elizabeth put my name in the list of people who she wanted on the expedition. Including another civilian in a list with limited places when military cooks could do a perfectly adequate job, seemed completely wrong headed to most of the top brass. I think the fact that I spent my formative years in the Royal Corps of Engineers before I took up cooking, so at least 'knew one end of a gun from the other' as one of the Generals said, seemed to sway some people. The day I took charge of the mess in the SGC convinced most of the rest.

Of course not everyone on the expedition knew who I was before we left or why I was on the roster, so when I met the then Major Sheppard in a corridor the day before we left, I couldn't resist teasing him a little through the introductions. I thought his eyebrows were going to disappear into his hair when I told him I was Elizabeth's personal item. Of course it was all ruined when Dr McKay came barreling through and reminded me that he was allergic to citrus. Again.

In a strange way I suppose I was Elizabeth's personal item. The official reason she gave for my inclusion was that she wanted someone who could cook tasty, interesting food on a large scale with limited (possibly alien) resources. I'm sure this was a large part of her reasoning, and I'm equally sure a lot of people thanked her for insisting, but I also know that one of Elizabeth's great pleasures was good food. Knowing her, I'm pretty sure she agonized over her choice to include me, wondering whether it was her own fear of having to eat nothing but standard military catering or something the expedition really needed. I'm glad she did include me and I hope she never wondered what it would have been like if she'd included that one extra scientist or another marine because I wouldn't have missed this for the world.

It's been fun writing these recipes down, but even more fun telling all the stories that seem to go with them. I hope that you all enjoy reading them.

 

Grace Mallory

Head Chef, Atlantis Expedition, 2011

______________________________________________________________________________

Part 2

 

Comments

[lemonbliss.livejournal.com]

Well this is just as cute as it can be! You have really put a lot of work into it.
You even have an ISBN number! Fantastic!!!

I don't have time to read the entire set right now but I will be back later today. Oh, and this reminded me that I wanted to put the Stargate's on my Netflix list. I have only seen the random episode here and there.
Later, Raenae

[anyanka-eg.livejournal.com]

The ISBN is faked, as I'm sure you guessed but I wanted it to look authentic. I had fun writing it as I love to cook and to write. Perfect really.

Stargate and Stargate Atlantis aren't all perfect episodes but when they're good, they're really good.