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A few years ago, disillusioned with the fine dinning industry, I walked away from being a chef. Not working in Miami with summer coming, I wrote emails to summe

A few years ago, disillusioned with the fine dinning industry, I walked away from being a chef. Not working in Miami with summer coming, I wrote emails to summer camps with sailing programs trying to get a job as a sailing instructor. Kingly Pines Camp in Maine responded to my email saying, "I won't lie to you. We still do need a sailing instructor, but if you are working here you will be cooking." So I went to Maine for the summer. All the other camps in the lakes region started to outsource their dining to the Aramark corporation. Kingly Pines didn't want to go that route. How does an institution like a summer camp provide three meals plus an afternoon snack a day for $5 per person? The camp has average 200 campers under the age of 15 and 100 staff. Also, everybody is very, very physically active so people are hungry. That's a food budget of $1500 a day. The decision was to make everything from scratch. There were only three of us in the kitchen The food director who was in charge of the pizza station at U of Maine during the winter was awesome. I appreciate that he listened to me because I was coming from the best restaurants in Northern California. We created a salad bar with 5 different types of homemade salad dressing. We baked our own meats for cold cuts. It's not difficult to make home made roast beef and turkey breasts before using a slicer to cut them. The tiramisu caused a riot. Instead of Dinty Moore beef stew, we purchased two top rounds. It's one thing to make beef stew with carrots and potatoes but my recipe uses parsnips, celeriac, turnips, and potatoes. Why only make one type of lasagna if you can make three different types? I bet I could get your kids to eat roasted portobello mushroom goat cheese lasagna. Once a week we would make several different facaccia pizzas. The camp's philosophy is to challenge children to do things they haven't done before whether to get up on water skis for the first time or get to the top of a rock climbing wall, to explore their world, and to learn to be independent. That philosophy was extended to eating too. By the end of every session many the kids even the most reluctant faced with peer pressure to try new things -- it works two ways -- had become gourmands. Turns out that we spent $4.25 a day per person well under budget. The last day of each session when the parents picked up their children we had a big lunch for everybody as the camp did activities that included all the campers and parents for the day. I would say things to the dinning director like buy me four sides of salmon, a couple bags of spinach, and a box of puff pastry. So we were making prime rib and salmon in croute. One of the parents was just amazed and asked if the campers eat like this and his daughter said yes, every day. Children are curious and if they trust the cook to serve them something that isn't dull and bland,they are open to the experience of good and interesting food. If someone is serving me canned vegetables and overcooked broccoli that was engineered to have an extended shelf life not for flavor, I'm not going to want to eat veggies either! If you have kids, have a look at Kingsly Pines camp. [1] http://www.kingsleypines.com/ http://www.kingsleypines.com/

muddyrivers 11y ago
This is amazing! I am not a chef. I cook at home, and my cooking skills might be above average. I believe that the cheapest way to run a school cafeteria is to make food from scratch. It is also a much healthier approach. For example, instead of serving pre-made and super-unhealthy chicken nuggets, buy those cuts of meat and fish that are deemed "undesirable" in grocery stores, but perfectly fine in term of health and nutrition. They can be used to make stews, or they can be made into ground meat by the kitchens themselves and in turn made into meatballs, bolognese, lasagna fillings, burgers, fish cakes, etc. The same idea can be applied to vegetables and fruits, too. A large amount of perfectly fine vegetables and fruits are thrown away every day just because they don't look nice. They aren't rotten. People won't get food poisoning after eating them. They just don't look good. They are either in odd shapes, too big too small, or have some light bruises, etc. School kitchens can buy them and make perfectly healthy and delicious meals from them. I do see the issue of this approach. It needs cooks who know how to cook from scratch, especially how to cook those cuts of meats they are not familiar with, or cooks who are willing to learn these techniques. I suppose it is much easier to find these cooks in the countries who have a long and rich cuisine history, like France, Italy, China, Mexico, etc. It could be a challenging task here.
- zappo2938 11y ago
  The camp bought food wholesale in bulk at a discount over small restaurants in the next town over. Figure the camp spends 1/3 or 1/4 the amount you do at the supermarket for the same if not higher quality product. We would make a turkey dinner once for every session. Who doesn't love turkey dinner with all the fixings, even in July? Take the every day snack, for example, there doesn't need much choice. I'd make homemade chocolate chip cookies and zucchini bread. But, we would also buy a box of Italian ices or a box of peanut butter in single serve cups and serve them with celery sticks. Children don't have immune systems that are as developed as adults so bacteria contamination is much more serious. It is important that children are served the most 'desirable' food. I don't understand why it is ok to even think about serving the crap food to children? You are suggesting we give the old food that has lost its flavor and more likely has developed undesirable flavor to children. It's like you have this idea that we can just serve kids whatever. I'm just saying that I had an experience where an institution served really good simple healthy balanced food to children within a constrained budget. It's doable. I know how to do it.

muddyrivers 11y ago

This is amazing! I am not a chef. I cook at home, and my cooking skills might be above average. I believe that the cheapest way to run a school cafeteria is to make food from scratch. It is also a much healthier approach. For example, instead of serving pre-made and super-unhealthy chicken nuggets, buy those cuts of meat and fish that are deemed "undesirable" in grocery stores, but perfectly fine in term of health and nutrition. They can be used to make stews, or they can be made into ground meat by the kitchens themselves and in turn made into meatballs, bolognese, lasagna fillings, burgers, fish cakes, etc. The same idea can be applied to vegetables and fruits, too. A large amount of perfectly fine vegetables and fruits are thrown away every day just because they don't look nice. They aren't rotten. People won't get food poisoning after eating them. They just don't look good. They are either in odd shapes, too big too small, or have some light bruises, etc. School kitchens can buy them and make perfectly healthy and delicious meals from them. I do see the issue of this approach. It needs cooks who know how to cook from scratch, especially how to cook those cuts of meats they are not familiar with, or cooks who are willing to learn these techniques. I suppose it is much easier to find these cooks in the countries who have a long and rich cuisine history, like France, Italy, China, Mexico, etc. It could be a challenging task here.

zappo2938 11y ago
The camp bought food wholesale in bulk at a discount over small restaurants in the next town over. Figure the camp spends 1/3 or 1/4 the amount you do at the supermarket for the same if not higher quality product. We would make a turkey dinner once for every session. Who doesn't love turkey dinner with all the fixings, even in July? Take the every day snack, for example, there doesn't need much choice. I'd make homemade chocolate chip cookies and zucchini bread. But, we would also buy a box of Italian ices or a box of peanut butter in single serve cups and serve them with celery sticks. Children don't have immune systems that are as developed as adults so bacteria contamination is much more serious. It is important that children are served the most 'desirable' food. I don't understand why it is ok to even think about serving the crap food to children? You are suggesting we give the old food that has lost its flavor and more likely has developed undesirable flavor to children. It's like you have this idea that we can just serve kids whatever. I'm just saying that I had an experience where an institution served really good simple healthy balanced food to children within a constrained budget. It's doable. I know how to do it.