Food at Alpine

Glenn Breazeale | Jul. 10, 2026

When Mr. O was first starting camp, at 24 years old, his father gave him one piece of advice: whatever you do, don’t skimp on the food. And Mr. O took the advice. Plus, if you knew Dick, you knew he was sort of a foodie before his time. Not necessarily what we consider foodies today - elevated or high minded or perhaps fusion cuisines. He just liked good, southern, home cooked food. And desserts! Now he did love a fancy, more elevated dining out type meal. And he knew every local spot in the Southeast from his decades of travel recruiting campers and counselors.

In a nod to the more southern agrarian days, we still have our “hot meal” at lunchtime (dinner as sometimes Mrs. Gail still calls it). A warm protein, a couple veggies, and some bread like yeast rolls or cornbread. Yesterday we enjoyed chicken fingers with Mrs. Gail’s famous Shazam sauce, along with mashed potatoes and lima beans (the debate at our table was do you call them lima or butter beans?). The day before was Salisbury steak and gravy with cheesy broccoli and scalloped potatoes. Now that’s not to say we don’t have hot meals for supper either. One night this week she served her much loved BBQ pork, baked beans, and French fries. Tonight we enjoyed a hamburger night buffet and ate picnic style outside and around the Dining Hall with our cabins. It’s a chance to get our kitchen boys a night out.

Mrs. Gail is helped by a capable and hard working crew of ladies and men in the back. This is our third summer in our brand new kitchen that we completed a few days prior to the 2024 season. If you grew up camping here but haven’t been in a while - don’t worry - we preserved the front of the building, the dining room. It’s expanded slightly, and renovated top to bottom, but still retains the same rustic feel. We essentially lopped off the back 1/4 of the building, the old, small, outdated kitchen. And built back a space 2 1/2 times as large that is equipped to serve the 450 mouths we are feeding for 3 meals a day!

We also added a dedicated buffet room in between the kitchen and the dining room. As you may have gathered, almost all of our meals are served family style by our kitchen boys, large platters and plates heaping full of food on each table prior to our arrival. Our kitchen boys are high school boys who live with older counselors and have usually been campers with us. They work so hard and also have the best time together! So the buffet room gives us flexibility for nights like tonight when the KB’s are out with their counselors for some much deserved time off. It also allows us to have a permanent breakfast bar each morning, as I mentioned in a previous post.

The front of the house is now heated during the cooler seasons which allows us to serve more retreat groups. We love hosting churches, schools and RUF or other college ministry type retreats all year long. If that’s something you’d like more info about please feel free to reach out to Davis Hinton, our retreat coordinator, on our website. By the way, Davis is one of our newest full time staff members. In the summer he’s our Dining Hall manager, supervising the KB’s and coordinating many of our logistics for out of camp trips, overnight campouts, etc. During the rest of the year he serves our retreats. Davis is a graduate of Samford University and was a counselor at Alpine in college. He’s newly married as of March! Davis loves long distance running and has also hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in several sittings.

Porter Young and Joe Buchanan are our two kitchen boy counselors for this term. They are both veteran Alpine guys. Porter is a Mississippi native, MS State grad (bachelors and masters), and CPA pending the results of his final section. Just a few days after camp ends he will begin his career as a public accountant at a regional firm in Chattanooga! Joe is a longtime camper and counselor and will be a senior at Ole Miss. If you know Oxford, MS, you will love that Joe grew up working the griddle at one of Oxford’s legendary restaurants, Handy Andy.

There has been rain all around us this week but not really ever on top of us. We’ve been blessed to not miss any activities this week and have only gotten a few sprinkles here and there. Activities are in full swing and will continue on Saturday, a normal day here at Alpine. Plenty of boys probably don’t even realize that tonight is the start of the weekend. In the most beautiful way, the camp routine fades the days of the week in the background. Until Sunday. Sunday is intentionally set apart and different here at camp.

One more special note about meals. We sing meal hymns, prayers before each meal. There’s a different meal hymn for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They are the same as we sung when I was a camper in the 80’s. As far as I know, they date back much, much further than that. We all come into the dining hall hungry and ready to eat the delicious food we see on the table in front of us. And yet we stand behind our chairs, pause, and sing in unison. It’s a visible and audible reminder that all we have is from the Lord. And we owe him our gratitude.

Thanks for reading and good night for now, Glenn

Glenn Breazeale
Glenn Breazeale

Like his own father, Glenn grew up as a camper at Alpine for six summers, coming from Jackson, MS each summer. He has served on staff at Alpine since 1997, working full time as Assistant Director from 2003 to 2005 and Director since 2006. Prior to that he gained experience serving in various capacities including cabin counselor, Head Counselor, Head of Project Adventure (Ropes course), Horseback instructor, and Program Director. Glenn’s love of camping and his desire to preserve the traditions of Alpine drew him back to camp to offer young boys the same opportunities he experienced. He met and fell in love with Carter during a Square Dance with Camp DeSoto.