Last summer, after years of career
and family attachments, Carol Weisse did something irresponsible.
The professor of psychology left
her children and husband behind to spend 16 days as a cook on the Halfmoon, a
replica of explorer Henry Hudson's vessel, while the ship and crew sailed to Virginia
to be filmed in the Hollywood movie New
World.
The movie, an epic adventure about the
settlement of the Jamestown colony,
stars Colin Farrell, Christopher Plummer, Wes Studi, and David Thewlis and is
scheduled for Fall 2005 release from New Line Cinema.
Without any formal training in
cooking, Weisse climbed aboard the ship with her spreadsheets detailing grocery
lists of nearly 150 items, 30 menu rotations, and boxes of provisions from a
full day of shopping at Sam's Food Club. She also took along helpful
suggestions from Vicki Wain of Union's dining services. “I'd
never done anything like this in my life,” she said. “This was the first time I
had done something big that didn't have anything to do with work or family.”
Conditions on board were in many
ways just as they would have been for the crew of the Susan Constant,
the 17th-century ship that the Halfmoon portrayed for the
movie. There was no shower and no rooms, although there was one pump toilet.
Most of the 25-member crew slept on the floor of a small mid-level deck. “I
felt like I was on Survivor,”Weisse said.
Weisse's cramped galley kitchen
had a stove, a refrigerator, and a freezer, but with generator power on board,
she was limited to one burner or appliance at a time and had to unplug the
coffee pot to heat water. She fought the
oppressive heat by tying frozen boxes of spinach in front of a small fan. The
rolling ocean presented additional challenges, spilling her Portuguese soup and
creating lopsided casseroles.
But the crew was thankful. “They
loved anything that I made, in part because they were starving!” Weisse said.
Among the favorites was pasta with a saffron, sage, sausage sauce, the aroma of
which brought many crew members below deck to investigate.
Days were long, and twilight was a
preferred time for filming. Weisse's challenge was to feed the crew without
ruining the set with food that was not part of the movie. On one especially
long evening, Weisse went against captain's orders to bring trays of
quesadillas to the starving crew. “I had to explain to the captain that I was
overruling him as a safety precaution,” she said. The captain later thanked
her.
The ship, also known as the New
Netherlands Museum,
hosts educational programs along historical and environmental themes. Weisse's role as ship's cook came through a family
connection with the Halfmoon. Last year, her daughter participated in an
annual fall re-enactment of Hudson's
cruise. Her husband joined the crew more recently after hearing such positive
stories about the ship from his daughter and wife. Weisse said the experience
was extremely rewarding, showing her that she could rise to a challenge. “I'm
not a physically strong person,” she said, “but mentally I'm a bit of a pit
bull and I think my determination to do a good job served me well.”