Antarctica on a Plate (Unabridged)

The true story of a young woman who ditched everything she knew to become a cook in the coldest place on earth: Antarctica.

Imagine you are a young woman with a stellar career but an increasing dissatisfaction with life. Imagine that your idea of a "remote location" is the distance between a taxi rank and a shoe shop. How do you shrug off your growing ennui? Simple. You apply for the position of cook in the coldest place on earth: Antarctica.

Antarctica lends itself to tales of adventure and heartbreak. The landscape is polarized, beautiful and deadly in equal measure. But Alexa doesn't scale mountains or trek to the Pole. Instead, armed with an old cookbook, she attempts to create three-course meals with no electricity or running water and struggles to defrost meat in sub-zero temperatures. Life in a thin nylon tent in the company of scientists, explorers, and eccentrics soon begins to take on extraordinary dimensions. As 120-kilometre-an-hour winds blow and tensions rise, friendships, and love, are forged in this frozen neighborhood.