Thank you for such a positive
experience. I hope that Julia returns next summer. She actually
wanted to come again last summer but was busy during the other
camp weeks.Margaret C.
GIANT
RAMPAGING HERD OF VEGETABLES TAMED BY CHILDREN
DURING GRANNY'S VICTORY GARDEN COOKING CAMP!!!
Thank Heavens for hungry
children! What, they don't like
vegetables? Maybe
they will if they pick them and prepare them
first. We have seen children eat
spinach and kohlrabi - OK, they didn't know
what kohlrabi was, but they ate it and liked
it! And no, we didn't starve them first.
Campers will harvest and
prepare herbs and vegetables, exploring different
dishes and ingredients. They will learn kitchen
skills to prepare a sit-down meal to share.
Nutrition is built into this camp, and all the wide
variety of organic veggies and herbs at Granny's
Garden. Kitchen safety will be taught, as well as
cooking skills that will serve campers well for a
lifetime of cooking and eating.
Read:
A camper's journal of a day at camp.
Measuring
balsamic vinegar for salad dressing.
Each day includes:
harvesting produce from the gardens
lots and lots of cooking as they prepare
and eat brunch
herbology - learning about a new herb in the herb garden
taking photographs
down time for sitting on the grass in the shade and just
talking, looking for bugs in the grass or at clouds in the sky.
a walk on the nature trail or other destination on the
school grounds.
Then we decorated
our aprons and learned how to take photographs
with a digital camera. Say,"Cheese!"
Granny taught us how to harvest
some of the lettuce planted by the school children in April.
Bruschetta and salad were on the menu the
first day
Look at all of the
beautiful lettuce we harvested!
This is just from one group and there were four harvesting.
We planted more
lettuce for the next camp to harvest.
We learned the proper way to use a knife then were
assigned the task of chopping basil, chives and garlic for the bruschetta and
other herbs for the salad dressing.
We learned how to cut bread and mix herbs in
vinegar and oil to make salad dressing.
Here we all are, hard at work under the watchful
eyes of our camp leaders.
We toasted the bread on the grill. While the
toast was still warm, we took turns
rubbing the toast on both sides with cloves of garlic from the gardens.
Each camper had a bucket with her name on it.
Inside was the eating utensils and cloth napkin she would use during her week at
camp.
After learning how to set a table and a short discusson
about using good table manners, the groups sat down for brunch. Many were
surprised to learn they actually did like tomatoes as they spooned more on the
garlic toast to make bruschetta! Others just ate
toast.
We worked and ate in
family groups of six campers plus an adult teacher and a teenage helper.
After brunch, everyone was responsible for washing his own dishes.
We barely had time to pick a bouquet of flowers before it was
time to go home.
"Don't judge each
day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant." Robert Louis
Stevenson
