FIRST WEEK WITH THE CAMPERS

They came, they're here, and it's as crazy as we were warned.
1400 or so mouths to feed breakfast and lunch.
An hour and fifteen minutes just to put tray after tray after tray after tray of English muffins into the ovens for 5 minutes, and out again into the warmers.
Vegetable barley soup for 1400- how much barley to put? The sacks are 25 pounds- do I put 8 pounds, 25, 12, 15- all the numbers are equally ridiculous to me, so I wing it.
We cracked and scrambled 2400 eggs one breakfast.
Pancake morning takes 3 hours of 3 people on the griddles.
Kitchen boot camp.
After coming here to "Americana Summertime" from 28 years in Israel, and after actually being Canadian to begin with and not American, there are some situations here that strike me as so funny, and so culturally different:
The whole pasta thing that I already talked about, on facebook.
Six a.m. on my way to work in the kitchen- I pass two 9 year old boys drinking cans of Coke on the grass. At 6 a.m.
There was an outburst of rain at dinnertime the other night, so I had to do "guard duty" so the kids won't grab the huge, expensive garbage bags in the lunchroom  for rain protection to get the 2 minutes to their bunks.  Best line of the evening- "I absolutely must have a garbage bag for my friend to wear back to his bunk- he has VERY expensive shoes!" The peeved teenager of course did not appreciate my "so tell your friend not to bring very expensive shoes to camp."

No one told us about the major, huge, loud, 15 minute fireworks show that started at 9 p.m. last night, just below our window. What an immigrant I am- I can't begin to describe to you the first few seconds of what went through my Israeli head when the big booms started- suffice it to say that I did a quick look around to see where to hide (between the shower stall and the wall was my decision, with a little prayer that I would fit) while we're being attacked by terrorists. Marvin and I had a good laugh when we realized we both thought the same thing...

And through all the intense, insane hours and days of churning out tray after tray and pot after pot of all-American, carb-intense camp food, the sick feeling in my stomach and heart just does not go away, thinking of our 3 boychiks and their families... let's pray for a happy and thankful post full of good news for next week.
Chodesh tov and Shabbat Shalom.

CAMP MOSHAVA, SUMMER 2014

Marvin and I are not from the biggest travellers or adventure seekers, but I tell you it's been quite a year.  Writing and producing our book was a learning experience in and of itself, and then we went away for Pesach to cook for a large family in a small boutique hotel.

Camp Moshava in Indian Orchard (Honesdale) Pennsylvania is just lovely. It smells of grass and wood, and everything is so green and lush and thick compared to Israel- I'm jealous of the water and the wetness, and the thick forest that forms the scenic backdrop everywhere you look. People here don't know what it's like to thirst for rain so badly it hurts.  Getting in the shower is such a shock- strong, boiling hot water on demand, no guilty feelings for staying in the jetstream for a few minutes longer...

We were whisked over to see the camp's most famous sites that we had heard about for years already on the afternoon we arrived - Walmart, followed the next day by the Salvation Army store.  Walmart was everything we had heard about- the eye department fixed my broken glasses in minutes, no charge of course, with a "my pleasure, ma'am, you have yourself a nice day". Bottles of shampoo and soap for $1, huge bags of barbequed chips for $2, extra firm pillows were $5 each. I've  already had malted balls, junior mints (seinfeld memorabilia), a heath bar, and a delicious, banana-ey banana (unlike the tasteless ones I'm so used to) from Costa Rica (strong urge to make banana bread..). The salvation army store has loads of name brand clothes for great prices, and even with that it's 50% off on Wednesdays....but we just looked.

In the kitchen I've already been treated to a creamsicle (tell me those aren't the best!), instant hot chocolate, and instant oatmeal. The blueberry muffin mix I had to use this morning to bake slabs of "blueberry muffin cake" for 450 people was quite different for someone who baked muffins from scratch for most mornings of 21 years! (the funniest part, is that it was quite tasty! I'm serious. I can't help it- I love a lot of really crappy junk food...)(I wish I didn't , but I do.) Bread pudding for lunch today was the recipe from my cookbook- but we made it with about 30 loaves of bread, 400 eggs, 240 cups of milk, and about 18  kilos of bright orange (what on earth do they feed the cows here?) shredded cheddar cheese. And this was only for the staff...

750 kids come up to camp Tuesday morning, so this is all just a warm-up act... but it is sooo much fun in the kitchen! Marvin and I are definitely part of the "alte kackers" in the kitchen with all the young kids around helping us, but it's still fun (except I have to buy earplugs- I like working to music, but the decibel level these kids like working too is definitely damaging my eardrums).

That's it till next time- I really have to try to concentrate more on salads, but I still need to get to Baskin Robbins and Krispy Kreme you-know-whats, so the dieting will have to wait till I get back home....

Have a great Shabbat, everyone.