The Menu: Project Hail Mary
If Ryland can save the sun with duct tape and physics light-years from home, we can certainly plan dinner. Inspired by the Petrova Line, Astrophage, and a friendship that spans galaxies, this menu plays with space food ideas but elevates them for Earth. Unlike Rocky and his ammonia-based nutrient paste, we get to enjoy flavor, texture, and the luxury of gathering around a table. Nothing dehydrated. Nothing floating away. Just out-of-this-world dishes designed for humans, with gravity on our side.
Drinks
We’re starting with vodka in honor of Engineer Olesya Ilyukhina. She drank it straight from the bottle. You should not. Unless you want your book club to wrap up before dessert. Instead, mix up a classic vodka tonic from The Spruce Eats so everyone survives the mission.
Appetizer
We’re heading straight for the stars with My Fussy Eater’s golden, flaky puff pastry cut into little constellations and topped with melted cheese. Think of them as your edible galaxy while plotting a course toward the Petrova Line. Unlike Rocky and his ammonia-based nutrient paste, we get to eat actual food.
Salad
When traveling in space, you need fuel. Scientists developed a “space salad” to sustain astronauts on long-duration missions, built entirely from crops that can be grown inside a spacecraft. Soybeans/edamame, barley, sweet potatoes, seeds, and greens working together like a well-balanced crew. Brit.co brought it back down to Earth so you can eat this hearty salad with forks, under oxygen, and without worrying about bone loss.The recipe serves 2, so plan accordingly if your crew is larger.
Main
When Ryland first comes to, his meals are basically baby food, smooth and engineered for survival. As he regains his strength, the food gets texture too. Beef stew. Scrambled eggs. Sausage wrapped in tortillas. Tortillas don’t send crumbs floating through a spacecraft. Back on Earth, go straight to your local taqueria and order your favorite burrito, whatever fuels your mission. Handheld, mission-ready, and worth abandoning freeze-dried rations for.
Dessert
For dessert, we’re channeling Rocky. These peanut butter cookies from Allrecipes topped with chocolate “spiders” get a slight modification: skip the candy eyeballs and pipe on five legs only. Not scientifically accurate, but close enough in spirit. Five legs. No eyes. You know why. A small nod to our favorite Eridian engineer, and proof that even across galaxies, friendship can be sweet.
If slicing chocolate truffles feels fussy, malt balls make an easy substitute for the body. The recipe says 48 cookies, but my batch was closer to 24, so you can likely halve the truffles needed. Keep extras on hand in case some crack while slicing. I chilled some before slicing and they cracked more easily, so slightly softened or room-temp works better.
Saving the universe takes math, duct tape, and an unlikely friendship across the stars. Next time you see a fellow Earthling, throw some jazz hands up and see if they reciprocate. Then grab a burrito, count to five, and toast to gravity, oxygen, and dessert. Fist my bump.
