Kitchen Duty

I thought for today's entry I would describe to you a typical day as Chef Boy's Chicken Assistant. So far, things are going well and I think in all the days we've been here, only 2 were spent not speaking to each other. Overall, an extreme success and a great test to see how we could potentially work together.

A look at my typical day:

6:15- alarm blares; I wake up (for those of you who know me, you can feel how torturous this is for me)
6:30- up at the kitchen, making juice and getting things ready- like putting hot bleach water in the tub of rags used for table wiping; making coffee (that I don't even drink); getting butter plates for each table and brown sugar for oatmeal; etc.

6:45- ring first bell to wake up campers/counselors (this is a large old fashioned dinner type bell that you wear ear protection to ring cause it is wicked loud!)

- Continue getting breakfast items as needed; grunt at Chef Boy

7:00- ring bell again

7:15- ring bell... again

7:30- ring last morning bell which means "come on in and eat"

(at every meal, the campers come in and stand by a chair at a table. Each table has a counselor at the head of the table. Each table also has special positions called "jumpers" and "scrapers". The jumpers are the only people who are allowed to get up and they go get the food. They walk up, get a tray, and we give them serving bowls. The scraper is the person who gets all the dishes passed to them and they scrape them onto one plate. Then the jumper takes the dirty dishes to the kitchen to scrape the food into the food trash bin, the burnables into the burnable trash bin, etc. We always have a counselor assigned to the kitchen for dish duty. )

After all the campers are at tables, there is pledge of allegiance in the morning, and songs before lunch and dinner. It's fun.

8:00- campers are eating and I'm usually grabbing something for breakfast, too.
8:30-9:00- breakfast is over. I'm cleaning up, putting things away, and almost talking in complete sentences by now.

After breakfast Chef Boy and I usually go and play ping pong. We have a summer long competition going on. I was ahead in games total until today, when he beat me 3 in a row! I told him his success will be short lived.

We have down time until around 10:30/11:00 when we go back to the kitchen to start lunch. Campers are doing program all day, and many are usually out of camp hiking, rafting, backpacking, horse riding, etc. So, some days we have very few people to feed, which is fun because we can be creative and do interesting things. This week, the 3rd week of camp already, there are 3 clear camp days for lunch, meaning 0 kids to feed at lunch. This means prime nap time.

Lunch is served at noon, and over by 1:30. I wipe counters, do some dishes, put leftovers away... do you see the trend here? I'm Chef Boys bitch. I follow him around cleaning up.

Chef Boy does put me in charge of dessert for dinner most days. So I get to make cakes, cookies, cheesecake, etc. It's so fun to bake in a huge kitchen with everything you need. I love the ginourmous mixer! I made a TX sheet cake the other day and it was a big hit.

This baking happens in the afternoons. Chef Boy Baker Man has been turning out some amazing breads.

4:00- In the kitchen, prepping for dinner at 6:00.
Making salads, dressing, helping with the cooking, getting serving bowls and utensils ready, etc.

5:30- ring the bell; write the menu on the window of the lodge where the campers line up. I've started doing this and they seem to like knowing what's for dinner. We have these awesome window markers that wipe right off- I totally recommend them.

6:00- crunch time- serve the campers the food; refill dishes as needed

Oh, I eat something in here as well. We have a cute little yellow 50's table in the kitchen where we sit and eat. There is always a number of counselors who are off that night, have kitchen duty, or just want to hang out. The director, David, eats here typically, too. The kitchen is the hanging out place. It's because I'm so cool, I'm pretty sure. :) We have great conversations. Especially with our nurse, Sue Sue. She is from LA, and is a total blast. I'll write more about her later.

7:00- clean up- I sweep, Chef Boy mops. I hate sweeping.

After dinner we are, for all accounts, off. We can go out if we want, participate in campfire, hang out in the squawk(staff lounge- full of 6 totally gross couches on which I'm SURE sex has occurred!), or go down to the Heinz House for reading and other things.

Although there is down time, we are usually pretty tired from the early wake up. There is a lot of reading going on. I've already read 4 books and just started another.

Well, that is a typical day. Don't forget, of course, we are surrounded by mountains and joy all day long. We might be surrounded by mountain lions, but as I don't see them, I don't care.