A Blog from Explorer Village

One of the wonderful things about being a camp counselor is learning how to take any situation and make it into either a party or a learning experience or both. This week, we took some of the food that the dining hall would have thrown away and turned it into a thrilling divisional activity. Every Monday and Thursday, the counselors in each division plan a shindig for all their girls—anything from a game of capture the flag all around camp to filming a video to tromping around in the mud to making crafts. This past Monday, the Explorer counselors decided to stage our own cooking show, which we called “cast iron chef.” The girls were put into teams and given an array of kitchen leftovers to choose from (peach sauce, sliced tomatoes, beaverhouses, and bananas, to name a few). Over a campfire, they had to cook a “gourmet meal,” which would be judged by our panel of expert chefs (three Explorer counselors, each with a different accent—French, Italian, and Southern); each meal also had to make use of leftover Jello salad.
The finished meals were presented with flourishes: interpretive dance, poetry, an infomercial. And, no matter how disgusting the meals were (fried bread with bananas, lettuce, jello, and maple syrup, for example), the counselors had to eat a whole forkful. I'll be the first to admit that some things were delicious while others were downright awful, but, at the end of the night, everyone was happy. And that's the point, isn't it?

Written by: Magpie, Explorer Division Director