Church Camp Year 2

We've been away at a church camp for the last few days - went there on Friday afternoon and came back this afternoon, so almost three whole days. My wife and I were assisting the chief cook to prepare the meals, afternoon and morning teas and suppers for up to 140 people, and keep the kitchen from getting in a total state of chaos. So it was up early (started around 7 am on average) and finishing well after the evening meal - by which time supper would also have been prepared and laid out. We did this regime last year too, though that was over a shorter period of time. We'd learned one or two tricks as a result. For instance, just because the chief cook is apparently capable to going from 7 am until whenever at night, doesn't mean we have to do the same. I remember last year sitting down at one point from utter exhaustion - after having stood for several hours (it seemed) - and feeling guilty.  This year I just went off and had a quick kip, or sat and read for a while in the motel unit we were occupying. It didn't hold anyone up and I was all the better for it (my wife did this too). In spite of that, both my wife and I have come home very weary, with sore feet and legs, and feel like having the rest of the week off. The indefatigable chief cook goes back to work tomorrow, and not in a job that's in any way lightweight.  Some people just have inexhaustible reserves.

She's also wonderful to work with. You can ask as many questions as you like and she's always patient - so you kind of receive on the job training. Next year - if there is a next year - I might even be able to make the 'home-made' ice cream from memory without having to ask her yet again what to do. (The home-made ice cream actually has cream in it, and condensed milk, and crushed up Crunchie Bars. It's unbelievably rich, and not a good thing to make if you don't have any discipline about licking up the leftover condensed milk...)

Long weekend

My wife and I spent the weekend (from Friday, just after lunch, until lunchtime on Sunday) at our church's annual family camp.  There were a 170 happy campers, some not so happy because of the heavy rain that we had (especially on Friday). They had to set their tents up in the downpours.  Most people chose to be in 'cabins' - a bit of a misnomer in this particular place, since they're more like long buildings with small rooms in them.  Either way, those people didn't get quite so wet.  

We were privileged to be housed in one of the two motel units on the site, along with the other people running the kitchen for the weekend.  (That's what we were there for, too.)   Working in the kitchen was an interesting experience: I haven't done a lot of physical work ever in my working life, and even less over the last few years, so being on my feet for hours at a time, and keeping up with the punishing routine of a kitchen providing for that many people was quite exhausting.  I got to the point on several occasions where if I hadn't sat down I would have fallen over.

Not being a cook, except in my own kitchen at home, I helped with all sorts of lesser jobs, from peeling things to cutting up things, to stirring soups, to putting more flavours into the soups, to convincing people that one soup was called Moroccan Mystery (it had a cauliflower base, which the cook said wouldn't impress people, so we didn't tell them - just let them try to guess!); to serving 170 people and telling them the names of the soups over and over, or where to get the milk, or the plates or whatever; to washing up stuff, to cleaning floors, to wiping down benches, to helping with baking (my contribution to one lot of baking was to put the flour in, and the baking powder - after that I got sidetracked onto something else); to putting out dishes and taking back the empties again, and so on.  You name it, we did it.

We not only served full-scale main meals, but full-scale breakfasts (people seem to eat a lot more when they're at a camp) and morning and afternoon teas and suppers with baking that had been done in the hours since the last meal.  Some food was brought in ready to be cooked, but not much.  Most was done on site.

With the kitchen not being fully commercial a fair degree of improvising was required on the part of  two talented cooks: they were forever juggling ovens and hot plates and oven trays and the like in order to get everything done on time.  We had some help from some of the campers who'd been rostered on to do stuff at different times, but in general we had the place to ourselves.

By Sunday the sun had come out and improved the state of things, but by Sunday my wife and I were wiped out: we didn't even manage to make it home (only an hour and a half) before we felt we had to have a snooze.  The joys of old age....