Out-of-this world flavor with Star Trek-inspired recipes from fan blog The Captain’s Table

(L-R) Icoberry torte, raktajino, chicken-tuna sandwich, and shrimp remoulade. All recipes and images from The Captain’s Table

JULY 20, 2021 - So today’s special is plomeek soup followed by fresh icoberry torte paired with a lovely raktajino. The tricky bit is you’ll have to make them yourself. If you’ve ever wanted to eat like a Vulcan or drink like you’re stationed on Deep Space 9, no worries, because blogger, podcaster, and Star Trek fan J. D. Keeling is here to help.

TrekReport recently caught up with Keeling, who has been creating recipes for and blogging about Trek-inspired cuisine since shortly after falling in love with Star Trek around the 50th anniversary of The Original Series. Before that, she says, they were just casual friends. 

Her recipes for alien dishes are all her own, though the flavors and methods are inspired by analogous Terran cultural traditions. Because Vulcan, for example, is a desert planet, she might borrow from Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish cuisines to create Vulcan dishes. 

While there have been other Star Trek cookbooks published, Keeling tries to stay up to date with food trends, which the older cookbooks can’t do. The research is ongoing as she populates a Google Doc with notes from watching Trek episodes and reading Trek books. 

Keeling is also a member of the Syfy Sistas podcast team and a weaver of Trek-inspired Twitter threads. And because she really dove into Star Trek on Netflix beginning with the first pilot, “The Cage,” her captain is Christopher Pike.

To find out more about J. D. Keeling and her blog you can read the full interview at Trek.Report. Keeling’s blog can be found at TheCaptainsTableLogs.com, and she tweets from the handle @starklyjd.