As I lay awake on this fine Thursday night I am forced to wonder about what I will write down for all to see. I force the memories of food to my mind and think about many a great meal. Yet there is something that I find in common with all of the memories more so than anything else. My family is not involved, well at least not my literal "family". More over what I do find in common with these memories is that more often than not, they involve me cooking the meal in question with a very tight nit group of friends, friends that i would go as far as calling my brothers and sisters. So as I sit here on a bench outside my dorm, cigarette in hand, I have chosen to relay the tale of what I have dubbed "the summer of food". This story begins several years ago when I first started my journey through life as an independent and a staff member at the Robert W Woodruff Scout Reservation. The summer of '09 was my third year and I was a climbing and challenge course instructor. The small group of us was comprised of only seven people with two very common interests, climbing and food. The summer kicked off with a long week of training through which we all became very close. We had laughs and fun and there were regular trips to our favorite in town destination, a bar in Hiawassee called The Boat Dock. Wednesday night was 49 cent wings and two dollar pitcher night for drought beers. That was the first time our food love emerged and as a bounch of college students man could we eat. That's when me and my friend DJ learned of each others passion for cooking and decided that thursday lunch was when we would cook for our fellow COPE staff. Several weeks later we bagan our venture with a beautifull meal of grilled pork chops, stir fried vegatbles with bowtie pasta and homemade biscuits. It braught a much needed taste of home to our weary mountain bound career and a much needed moral boost ensued. The next week's menue featured puffy tacos and the week after leftover staek and rice stir fry. Now woul dbe an excellent time for me to point out that we either grilled or stirfryed everything as all me had for the most part was a grill and a wok. Weeks that followed had similar menues and with our perpetual wednesdays off we would venture into town to The Boat Dock for an endless flood of wings and brews. One meal in particular stands out above all others though, and it actually occured on thursday night as a result of K-2 recieving honor staff. People who recieve the honor staff award are rewarded with the job of serving at the super secret scoutmaster pizza party which is neither super nor secret and is in fact a steak dinner. K-2 managed to smuggle out enough of said dinner for our small staff to chow down after a long day's work. We sat on our cabin porch for hours eating drinking and talking about life and the rewards of our job. Something can be said of the intrinsic value of helping someone overcome their greatest fears to have the time of their life no matter what the age. This was our last meal together, it was week eight and the summer was over. There is a second food related tale that must also be told. It was the job of us COPE staff to serve breakfast everymorning in the dinning hall to an average of 1200 scouts and scouters. This wasn't bad because it meant near limitless portions of the best meal of the day. What it also meant however was that we had to embark in a long war over a very sensitive tompic to a man, the beard net. You see we all wore hats or bandanas, more commonly known as b'danas to anyone who has ever been to the wal-mart in Murphy, NC. There were long heated arguements that resulted from the debate as to what qualified as actual facial hair worthy of a net. Well we faught it in every way possible starting with covering our heads in as many nets as we could get our hands on........ management was by no means thrilled with this.......... so we bagan our search for a more permanant somution, balaclavas. This worked for about a day before the boss said that there were complaints of the uni-bomber serving 11 year olds breakfast being innappropriate and un scoutlike. So we went back to the nets for a while, until one day in a drunken brainstorming session.......... DJ cut the sleves off his shirt and put them over his head and face like a ninja, add sunglasses and a sleeveless shirt (not ok by food service standards but thankfully no one seemed to care) and we became the COPE breakfast ninja's.......... we served in this manner for three weeks. The relevance of this entire ordeal to my overall message is clearly that it directly involves food.......... in some manner. So now that you have read my tale you may be wondering what on earth this has to do with foos as the journey or for that matter anything at all. The answer to your interogative is simple............ food braught us together. Food itself served as a release in every aspect from its production and preperation to its consumption, it was our journey to happiness if you will.......... our path to nirvana. You see there is more to food than the meal, there is a group of people or a single person to eat it and gain. For some this gain is purely nutritional, for others it is about nostalgia or amazing taste, but for us it was about brotherhood and relaxation. Being a COPE instructor is very stressfull, you literally take the lives of people directly into your hands each day, there is alot of responsibility involved and alot of long hours to ensure everyones safty and well being. Well how we dealt with this is through the meals we prepared and savoured together. They allowed us to come together and unwind to mesh and mingle over our common bond as instructors. There were no kids and no parents, just us and the woods and a plate of brotherhood, and in julia's case sisterhood. Food braught us toghether, food let us relax adn it let us be us. So as you can see food can be much more than a simple pointed destination.......... it can be a journey into the bowels of life.
........................That said I would like to think the Boy Scouts of America and the National Park Service for their wonderfull image contribution...................
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