"camp" news and stories

For ten summers, I attended an all girls sleep-away camp in the Pocono Mountains. For seven years as a camper and three years as a counselor, I lived for sticky poolside days and cool nights snuggling around the campfire. I loved every minute of camp. Even when the job wheel sentenced me to toilet duty or I lost count of the number of mosquito bites on my left leg alone, I would swear there wasn't a happier girl in the world.

Camp is so wonderful because of traditions: uniforms on Friday nights, banquet at the end of each summer, songs for every emotion, occasion, and weather condition. Camp food traditions are a category on their own: S'mores and bug juice are a given, but I'll never forget the plates of ice cream we'd get once each summer, the best grilled cheese in the world, and donuts and Firecracker popsicles on the Fourth of July.

Now I know that it's popular to eat this frozen treat every year on that day, but when I was younger, I remember thinking how brilliant it was that camp had found these beautiful and delicious red, white, and blue popsicles to serve in celebration They were left out after lunch, and I could barely get through morning activities in anticipation. We always had to debate which flavor (red cherry, white lemon, or blue raspberry) was tastiest, and I always chose lemon, struggling to lick the top and bottom of the popsicle first to save the middle for last.

Sometimes during the summer, I see them when I'm food shopping. I wonder if they taste the same, and I consider purchasing a box. But then I pass them over, knowing that the memory of licking them with friends on dining hall steps is all the sweet I need.

If you ever went camping as a child, chances are that you have a vivid memory of the first thing that you cooked or ate, whether it was hot dogs, s'mores or simply marshmallows, it was probably cooked on a stick. After all, was there any reason to go camping if you didn't get to eat food off a stick? You know that no one was out there for the mosquito bites.

Cooking on a Stick: Campfire Recipes for Kids is a book full of camping recipes that children can make on their own. It is aimed at the 7-11 age range and written specifically for kids, unlike some books that are simply about feeding them when you're doing the cooking. The book covers basic fire safety, describing how to build a fire properly (sort of seems like a boy scout/girl scout thing) and how to put it out, before introducing the young cooks to easy recipes with cute, appealing names. In addition to the stick foods (Moose Kebabs and Ranger's Apple Pie), there are foods cooked in pouches (Favorite Beans and Hibernating Bananas), grilled foods and snacks, like GORP.

And, yes, there is a recipe for s'mores, too.

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Somehow, the fact that August 10th is National S'mores Day managed to sneak by us, but these delicious treats are worth a mention, even if it is a bit belated.

If you're not familiar with s'mores, they are made by sandwiching a toasted marshmallow and a piece of chocolate in between two graham crackers. The name of the treat comes from the two words "some more," clearly combined because people often wanted to have at least a second serving after having one s'more. The treat was developed by campers in the early part of the 20th century, making use of the fairly new mass-produced marshmallows. Marshmallows were easy to transport, as were candy bars and graham crackers, and the marshmallows could be warmed easily over a fire to make a delicious treat in a situation where other types of sweets would have been difficult to come by.