EP 91 Pastries, science and baking in extreme environments with Rose McAdoo

Rose McAdoo is a pastry chef and an artist. But it wasn’t until recently that she started embracing the title of artist because she had identified so strongly with being a pastry chef.  She’s been working in kitchens since she was 14, and then when she became a chef she decorated wedding cakes in New York. It was a dream job, until it wasn’t. She realized that she wanted more out of her work, an opportunity to make a difference. So six years ago she took a job in Antarctica as a sous chef — today she splits her time between there and Alaska. Her surroundings and the scientists she worked around in Antarctica eventually inspired her to create something that could help share their science. That’s when she began creating cakes that convey scientific ideas. She’s traveled to and worked in some of the most extreme and remote environments in the world — Antarctica, a volcano summit in Kenya, underground in the Australian Outback, on a ship in Svalbard. Rose says that nothing is controllable in these places, and that the control lies in the planning she does before she goes into a given environment. She has to be flexible and able to pivot because the weather and the conditions could change at any minute.  Given the seriousness of the environments she works in, she appreciates the levity of cake. How it allows people to let their guard down and be receptive to scientific ideas about issues like climate change. However, she does struggle with the potential impact of what she’s doing — she says she doesn’t want to be seen as a “little cake maker just posting on Instagram.” She wants her work to carry meaning and to create larger conversations.