Carb Fest

One of the best things about Camp Medomak is one of the worst things for me personally, that being their cook Andrew.  See Andrew is a very shy guy who is in charge of cooking three meals a day for about seventy people.  Just thinking about all that cooking causes Andrew a lot of stress, that and also having to possibly receive many compliments from campers in person.  To help balance things out Andrew bakes.  And he is quite a world-class baker.

I know all this because Russ would get up very early everyday at camp and go up to the farmhouse where the kitchen and dining room are as well as the wifi porch that became Russ’ office.  Even at six in the morning Andrew would beat Russ to the farmhouse and begin his day, silently baking.

Food at camp was no pre-made, food service heat and serve stuff.  They have a big garden and a cow for milk and get as much sourced locally as possible.  Being just twenty minutes from the ocean also gives Andrew a chance to get a lot of good seafood, but the baking, that is obviously his real passion.

Vacation started at our friend Warren’s house where he was generously mindful of my diet.  I stayed away from the walnut bread and my own ice cream cone when I was there, then we went to camp.  At camp you eat what you are given and if you don’t like it there is always peanut butter and jelly.  You can be assured I always liked what was served and also did my best to stay away from peanut butter and jelly.

I would arrive at meals famished from running, well, maybe walking fast, kicking balls, shuffling tiles, throwing balls, paddling boards, making art and playing games.  At first I did my best to stay away from Andrew’s baked goods.  Although lunch the first day was impossible since he had made up this tuna melt bread where the tuna and cheese were rolled into the center of a homemade wheat bread kind of like a tuna melt Stromboli.  One bite and carb heaven came back to me.  That night I skipped the cranberry wheat rolls because the roast turkey was so good I was able to withhold, but then came the banana cake.  Enter the flour and sugar nirvana I had avoided for all these months.

The next day the leftover turkey on warm fresh focaccia and I was full blown back to eating carbs.  Yeah, I ate salads and the many fresh vegetables, but the zucchini and goat cheese flat bread with the hint of corn meal it was worth every calorie.  I ended the week at camp with apricot and ginger scones for breakfast.

Three days of post camp vacation in Maine had me still loving carbs.  What the hell, I was not about to try and detox while I was sharing one hotel room with a fourteen-year-old girl and did not have access to enough iced tea.  At last we are home.  I have gone to the Harris Teeter to stock up on all my standard foods and I am about to begin the three days of hell to get off carbs again.  At least the ones I did eat at camp were worth every bite since they were loving made by Andrew and did not have any preservatives or crap in them.  I pray now that I will not dream about the challah or the whoppie pies he made.  Tomorrow the scales will give me the honest truth of the damage.  One week a year of that is about all I can take.