And it may be Baikonur, but the Polyot kitchen and dining hall were filled with the aromas of Italy…if only for one night. We took over the kitchen for a night and treated the team to Italian Night at the Cosmodrome. And while it was only frozen pizzas, it was all homemade spaghetti and meatballs, with a little East Coast and West Coast flare. Add some garlic bread and a tossed salad and you might have thought you were in Tuscany. Fortunately, there were no volunteers to sing “Areviderci Roma”.

And while Italian night broke up the week, we all realized it had been almost 5 days since our last cookout. So, we re-secured the wind tarp around the pavilion, fired up the grill, cooked up about 5 gallons of homemade Fili chili, lit a bonfire and had an outstanding burgers, brats and chicken breasts BBQ. Needless to say, no one went home hungry last night, again.

Not a bad encore.