Camp cooks rank right up there with teachers in my estimation. I don’t much care to cook for just a few people, but these saints cook enough food to feed hundreds of hungry teenagers. And not just once or twice. They do it three times a day for months at a time. At least with the menu set for each week, they’re not scratching their head at 5:00 wondering what to fix for supper. But by the end of the summer, I bet they’re as tired of cooking the same old thing as the staff is of eating it!
Mrs. T, aka Mama T, cooked for Lutherdale for many years. She’d be in the kitchen by 6:30 every morning and wouldn’t leave until she’d made sure the food she’d planned for supper was prepared and ready for the other kitchen staff to pop in the oven or otherwise cook. Her beef and pork and ham roasts always came out juicy and tender. The aroma of pancakes and bacon in the morning air always makes me think of her, and I couldn’t resist adding that into the story of Sticks & Stones.
Mama T had several quirks and one of them happened to be an affinity for green bell peppers. She put them in the chicken noodle casserole, the goulash casserole and the sloppy joes. Nearly every meal, she found a way to sneak those green peppers into the food.
By the time her birthday rolled around one August, the staff had had enough of green peppers. They decided to bake a special birthday cake for her. It turned out beautifully with delicate pastel green icing covering an angel food cake made from scratch. She was thrilled. Though she never questioned the tiny green specks in the cake, we did notice she didn’t take it home. I guess she left it for the staff, thinking they must really like green peppers to put them in angel food cake.
