Camp Green Lane Blog Post
Happy Playday!
After a long, rainy day yesterday, the sun has finally come out today and everyone is VERY grateful for the break from the rain (although it was fun to have extra cabin time yesterday and all of the campers I’ve talked to said they enjoyed hanging out with their friends and having some cozy indoor time.)
The Ava Della Pietra concert in the Globe last night was very entertaining, and a great way to get everyone moving and dancing after a day indoors! She played some familiar favorites and shared some of her original songs. We all thoroughly enjoyed her show and we can’t wait to say we saw her perform here at CGL one day when she’s big and famous.
This summer, I am lucky enough to be running the cooking elective, which campers get to choose every week. We rotate the same three recipes with two new groups of campers every week (a girls group and a boys group). I love this time in the kitchen because a) I get to socialize with campers from all different cabins, b) we get to cook together to create something brand new, and c) the kids LOVE being in cooking elective, assumedly because they get to eat delicious treats and enjoy a bit of air conditioning in the dining room.
This morning, the boys’ elective group and I made cheese spanakopita, my favorite recipe from when I was a kid and something that I used to make with my mom when I was little. We got our hands dirty mixing together muenster, cream cheese, feta, parsley, and egg, and then everyone got to experience layering paper-thin phyllo dough on top of the cheese mix and painting it with melted butter. It was a tender moment to acknowledge that this was a recipe I grew up loving to make and to eat, and here I am at a summer camp in Pennsylvania getting to share my favorite dish with a whole new group of kids, most of whom have never tried it before.
On the flipside, during regular cooking by cabin this week, campers are making Cupcakes-in-a-Cone, a CGL classic. I feel like it’s practically a CGL rite of passage to make them, and it’s the perfect summer treat that they get to create, decorate, and devour together. Plus, they make the entire White House smell heavenly.
While we have a new cooking specialist this summer who runs the cooking by cabin sessions (and is absolutely nailing it!), I am very grateful to be able to cook with campers in the morning every day. There’s nothing like cooking together, and whether it’s just the air conditioning or they’re genuinely happy to see me, I look forward to my mornings with CGL campers every morning.
Want to bake along with us this week? Here the recipe for our CGL Cupcake Cones for you to make at home!