FOOD @ CAMP

How do you do it?
I am amazed at the ability to cook great food for the masses. When I was a kid, Sister E worked for the local school district as the cafeteria lady. She was way more than average. She made cinnamon rolls every morning for a 'snack.' She also insisted on using real butter in all of her cooking. The kids used to eat all their green beans—probably because of the yummy butter she'd cook them in. She should have won an award.

If I could find her, I'd pay her a million dollars to come cook for our girls camp.

I'm going to try to channel her by preparing some food-snob pizza-on-the grill, caramelized fruit tarts, and any chocolate wonderfulness. What great food experiences have you had @ girls camp?

My dad took the Scouts on a 50-miler and nearly had a brawl over the last grain of salt. Once, we ran out of bread @ girls camp. It caused a bit of stress! Another time, each ward cooked separately for themselves. In general, the food was terrible. One ward in the stake had a visitor who showed up late @ night with an entire car loaded with chips, salsa, candy, soda, and other yummies. The rest of us nearly cried.

So next year I'm trying to take all the good things about food @ camp and eliminate the bad.
What worked for you?
What would you do differently?
Do you hire a camp cook? If so, how do you integrate the YW in the food preparation?
Should I leave my 'foodie' sensibilities @ home? Or is there a way to gourmet-ize camp food?

Would love to hear your suggestions.

CAMP : SHOWER DILEMMA

OK. So, the fabulous Boy Scout Camp built in 1939 has a shower dilemma. Evidently in 1939 it was quite fine to have seven showers all in a row with no shower dividers, walls, curtains or even a hint of privacy. This is not going to fly with girls of 2009. Not to mention with their leaders. What to do?

Our stake YW Secretary is determined to procure PVC piping and create free-standing shower stalls complete with a cute shower curtain from Target. Did I mention how much I love our secretary? I think I'll buy her a year's worth of cookies @ the auction.

If you have any other shower dilemma solutions, I'd LOVE to hear them. Perhaps something that won't cost ten million dollars
and is installable by relief society sisters...

PAYING FOR CAMP

In our stake we've had three years of The Best Fundraiser Ever. We have a service auction. We stole the idea from the Young Adult ward who raised a cool $12,000 for needy families one Christmas. The concept is simple: get people in the stake to donate their cool stuff / services. Then get other people in the stake to buy the stuff / services. We've had professional basketball game tix, financial planning hours, motor-home use for a week, eyelash extensions, private pilot lessons and homemade cookies. Anything you can imagine, you can sell. And most anything you can imagine, you can buy. Plus, we've got this great auctioneer (a real one) who whips the crowd into a buying frenzy. Last year, during a recession, we made more than ever.

There's both a silent auction for the smaller stuff: cookies, cakes, babysitting services, tennis lessons, artwork, yu-gi-oh! card collections, etc. And a big, fast, loud bonifide auction for the big-ticket items.

My favorite part is seeing loving stake members feign battling-it-out over an item, say, a monthly cookie delivery, and end up spending $300 bucks. It's beautiful. And those cookies were definitely worth it.

What fundraising has worked well for you?

SECURING A LOCATION : WHERE DO YOU CAMP?

securing a location. where do you camp?

So, about Girls Camp. My friend, from Arizona, camped @ Camp Lo Mia outside of Payson Arizona. A beehive today could go to the same girls camp where her mother and her grandmother also camped as Young Women (and maybe even read her grandmother's name graffiti'd into the cabin wall—not that I'm advocating graffiti.) Pretty deep history. Can you imagine their traditions?!

In my growing-up-stake, it wasn't so much the place that was traditional, it was our SONGS. And stolen bras being hoisted up the flagpole each morning. Poor Sister B and her 40-triple-E. Although it did make a nice crisp popping sound in the breeze.

So two questions for today:

1. Where did you camp?

2. What were some of your treasured traditions?

3. Fave camp song: ___________________________________

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN : INTO THE FIRE

I thought the long succession of weekly activities-to-coordinate was bad. Now I am in charge of the whole stake girls camp. At least until we get a camp director. Our last camp director was FAN-tastic. I am anxious that I am less-than stellar in her footsteps and eager to get a new Post-Sister-Fantastic Camp Director. Last summer the YW in our stake requested Surf Camp. So, Sister Fantastic orchestrated an amazing and exciting girls camp right near the beach in Surftown USA. I can't imagine a more anticipated girls camp. Relatives of stake members trekked across stake boundaries to join our girls camp. Sister Fantastic admitted that she had never received such support from the ward YW leaders. Suddenly, everyone wanted to come to camp and 'help'. Surf Camp was fabulous. Long days lounging @ the beach, tide-pool exploration and hikes with ocean views. It was nearly Heaven. Except, that the living conditions were sub-Telestial. Well, maybe not even that good. Public campground. Gross bathrooms with gross coin-op showers. Tents. Dirt. I know, It was camp; but this was used, dirty dirt. Surf and Skater boys in nearby campsites who had the priesthood leaders on constant vigil. Drunken altercations one campsite over @ 3am.

Yes, we had the fabulous beach and ocean, but gone was the privacy of being able to shout at the tops of your Beehive lungs all the verses of 'I Wear My Pink Pajamas.' Gone was the security of nothing bad out there except for bears trying to get away from all the singing. Gone were the campfire services that alternated between screaming "the Lord told Noah there's gonna be a floody-floody..." and tearful testimonies of daughters of our Heavenly Father. Gone were the mountaintops where we could commune with Heaven.

Is it no coincidence that despite Nephi's proximity to the sea, the Lord asked him to retreat to the mountain to receive instructions on ship-building?

So, next year, it's back to the mountains for us. We've booked a Boy Scout Camp* with a gorgeous lodge built in 1939. Complete seclusion. Just us, racoons, rattlesnakes and, if we're lucky, a bear. I'm told that we can get to the Ocean in 45 minutes for sun, surfing and beachcombing, yet be back home for the best parts of Girls Camp; camp dinners, camp fires, camp songs, camp cabins, camp stories, camp friendships and camp testimonies. I can feel my spirit starting to relax. I can hardly wait.


*Because we're LDS, the local BSA council is giving us rock-bottom pricing on the camp. Hurray for 96 years of BSA-backing!