Dining in Style

Over the years I have consistently heard how much parents enjoy knowing what their boys are eating when I report on meals. You can imagine what they might eat at a certain meal (or not eat). Surprisingly, many boys try new foods for the first time at Alpine, often the result of positive peer pressure from the cool college guys on each end of the table. No guarantees though!

Tonight we dined on homemade cheesy and beef filled lasagna, a green salad with chopped tomatoes and ranch dressing and buttered toast. It is delicious and quite a feat that Gail and her team pull off to scale for over 400 hungry boys and counselors! Tonight we ate every morsel out of 10 large pans that are over 2 feet long and about 18 inches wide! Feeding this many guys 3 meals a day is not for the faint of heart. By the time we sit down to eat Gail and her team have moved on to prepping the next meal.

On top of the sheer logistics of cooking for this many, up until this summer Gail and her crew have been cooking in a 50 year old kitchen that was sized to feed about 150. But not any longer thanks to the dedicated work of so many this past offseason.

Your boys are a part of Alpine history, the first summer of campers to eat in our newly renovated Dining Hall. This project has been in the works for several years now and we are so grateful and excited about it’s completion. As you can imagine if you’ve ever done a home reno, there is still quite a punch list to be knocked out. But we are in it and everyone is loving the new space.

Basically we demolished the back 1/3 of the building, the kitchen. We added back a kitchen about 2.5 times the size, much more appropriate for our current size. We also renovated every portion of the main Dining Hall from the new roof down to the added foundation and floor joists. Landscaping and drainage is now in place to address years of erosion and wet weather run off (everything slants to the river around here!)

If you are interested in Alpine history, the current Dining Hall was originally the camp gym when Carter’s dad, Mr. O, bought the property. One summer in the early 70’s the old Lodge, which housed the dining hall, burned down about 5 days before camp was to start. Mr. O and his staff hastily converted the gym into the Dining Hall with the help of many of the other camps on Lookout Mountain. Wood Fruitticher, our longtime food supplier, sent a refrigeration truck and parked it outside to store the food. And they opened camp on time! After that summer, Dick built the kitchen that existed up until this year on the back of the old gym, now Dining Hall. So the front portion of the building, the dining portion that was renovated this year, dates back to probably the 1930’s.

Food is a big deal at Alpine. Camps are not always known for their tasty food; see almost any camp movie ever made! Mr.O’s father told him when he started camp at 24: whatever you do, don’t skimp on the food. Mrs. Gail is a second generation food director, following in the footsteps of her legendary mother, Bea Crow. 2 head cooks in 66 summers is something for which we are very thankful.

We’ve always felt that the Dining Hall is the heart of camp, the gathering spot, the place of many meaningful memories for generations of campers. We believed strongly that it was worth going above and beyond. There’s something intimate and special about sharing a meal with friends and mentors. It’s a celebration, a feast, and way to share fellowship and laughter. In today’s modern world, our meals are even more special with not a bit of technology in sight. To look out on 38 tables, 10 boys and 2 counselors to a table, talking and sharing stories, and no one buried in a device, is rather refreshing.

So that’s a bit about the Dining Hall. I should also shout out our Kitchen Boys, high school boys who are too old to be campers, that come back to work in the kitchen, washing dishes and waiting tables. We have a fantastic crew this summer - they work hard and have fun. Last night the Kitchen boys took a much needed night off, with their counselors. In their place, some of our older campers helped the ladies serve a Taco buffet. We took our plates outside, piled high with tortilla chips, ground beef, shredded cheese, chopped tomatoes, sliced lettuce, sour cream and salsa, and picnicked with cabins and counselors. Taco Tuesday, was a grand success, with blue skies and cool temps perfect for eating outside.

Really this whole week has been perfect, weather wise. Little to no humidity, cool mornings and abundant sunshine have made for a great start to First Term. Boys are finding their groove with activites and the rhythm of the days.

Thanks for reading and good night for now, Glenn