Camp Hitaga, Government Commodities and an 8 Track Tape

So far it had been a pretty standard interview. The regional director of the Iowana Campfire Girl district was asking me basic questions about my experiences as a cook in the Coast Guard, and what culinary skills I was learning at school.

Are you talking about government cheese giveaways?

Then she asked me a question that I was definitely was not expecting, “How good are you at cooking with government commodities?”

Somewhat puzzled, I inquired, “Are you talking about those government cheese giveaways?”

She smiled and answered, “We weren’t able to purchase any cheese, but we were able to purchase a huge amount of government surplus foods and commodities that were left over from Operation Dessert Storm for an incredibly discounted price. If you are hired as the camp cook, then you will have to go through all of the boxes, and figure out how to use as much of it as possible to feed the campers and staff this summer.”

In my most assuring tone possible, I smiled and answered her curve ball question, “I am sure that I will be able to use whatever government surplus foods that you have purchased, to everyone’s satisfaction.”

The rest of the interview was followed up with her talking about how the camp cook from last summer served the kids and staff hot dogs three times a week, how camp’s kitchen had been infested by mice, and how they really desired to hire a well qualified camp cook that could provide the kids at camp dining experience that really enhanced their overall camp experience.

I continued to smile, and encouraged her that I if hired that I would strive to whatever possible to meet and surpass everyone’s expectations.

She concluded the interview by verifying my contact information and asked to for a list of references. I opened my folder, handed her my list (I always have my reference list handy), and thanked her for the opportunity interview for head cook position at Camp Hitaga.

Camp Hitaga, was a Camp Fire Girls camp nestled along the Wapsipinicon River in Northeastern Iowa. I responded to a classified ad that they had placed in the newspaper for a camp cook for the summer.

A few days later, I received a phone call from Sue, the director of Camp Hitaga. She asked if I was still interested in the position which I definitely was, and she asked if I would be willing to drive out to Camp Hitaga to see the camp and talk some more about the cook’s position.

Obviously, Camp Hitaga was off of the beaten path, which involved driving for quite a ways on gravel and dirt roads. Driving to the interview in my little Mitsubishi Max truck with my windows I was beginning to get really excited to see what this camp actually looked like.

Driving through the gate, I drove down the long lane to the camp’s main buildings, passing by , a large 3 acre area of open grass, swimming pool, horse barn and corral, cabins, and other camp buildings. By all standards it looked like any other summer camp.

As the road veered to the left, I came upon the camp director’s cabin, and heart of the camp complex with the nurse’s cabin, and the dining hall a stone’s throw away. Sue came out to greet me, and then we started talking about my role as Camp Hitaga’s summer cook.

The whole basement was filled with nondescript brown boxes.

As we were talking, Sue gave me a tour of the dining hall and kitchen, and then took me over to the bottom level of the nurse’s cabin which contained all of the Desert Storm commodities that were purchased. The whole basement was filled with nondescript brown boxes. All of them were basically the same size and dimensions and labeled with plain black lettering identifying what each box contained.

“Steven, these are all of the commodities that have been purchased for the summer. Do you think that you can work with these?”, she asked.

Walking around the huge stack, and reading the box labels of the contents of the various boxes I saw boxes containing tomato sauce, flour, pasta, rice, canned fruits, a bunch of M.R.E. (meals ready to eat) rations, and other items that I cannot remember.

While I had no idea of how I was going to use the MRE rations, I again smiled and using my most assuring tone I answered, “Most definitely, I can use these commodities without any problem.

With that assurance, I was offered the position to be Camp Hitaga’s camp cook for the summer of 1992.

In the middle of May of that year, I showed up at Camp Hitaga and started working to clean, sanitize, and organize the kitchen (mice extermination was involved), and sorted and logged all of the random boxes of government surplus foods.

One Random 8 Track Tape.

The cook’s cabin, which was conveniently right by the dining hall was a pretty large four bedroom house with a full bathroom, and a huge couch in the living room that even had a stereo equipped with an eight track tape player.

Noticing one lone 8 track tape leaning beside the stereo, I walked over to the stereo, and picked up the tape. It was a a copy of “The Steve Miller Band’s “Anthology” album.

“My lucky day!” I said to myself.

I had no idea of who left the tape ther or why, but there, I found it to be the perfect tape for the summer, and pretty much listened to it for the entire summer.

A week later, the rest of the camp staff showed up and the following week the kids showed up for and my experience as the cook for Camp Hitaga had begun.

The parents would show up and drop off their kids at camp on Sunday afternoon, and I was responsible for feeding them and the staff breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day until Friday afternoon hen the children’s parents would pick them up to and take them home.

And that is where all of those dessert storm leftovers entered the picture.

So what all did I make with those Desert Storm leftovers?

Voilla! Peppersteak was on the menu!

For Starters, the Iowa weather of 1992, it was cold and rainy. In fact it rained so much that the Des Moines River flooded flooding most of downtown Des Moines. Since the weather was cool and rainy, I often found myself putting any comfort related meals on my menus. That translated into menu items like macaroni and cheese, pasta bakes, chili, and chicken and noodles. I found that if I could gather enough MRE meals containing the same foods, then put them all together, doctor them up with the right spices, I could get things tasting pretty good, and nobody had any idea of what I was doing. One day going through my government commodity boxes, I found a couple of cases of canned beef with juices. The beef tasted fine, but the beef juice part tasted pretty nasty. I decided to empty the cans into a vary large colander and rinsed off the juices leaving just the beef chunks. Then I made a pepper steak sauce with peppers and onions, mixed the beef into the sauce. Voila!! Peppersteak was on the menu.

Make some cinnamon rolls, and be a rock star!

On most days I would be walking into the kitchen by 5:30 and have breakfast ready to serve by 8:00. Lunch was always ready by 12:00. After lunch there was always a one hour camp siesta, which I would go back to my cabin, lie down on the couch and listen to my Steve Miller tape. Dinner was served at 5:30. As the camp cook, I was required to work a long day, but in all honesty, I really thrived in that situation. For the most part, those kids loved my food and they enthusiastically treat me like a rock star (especially when I served cinnamon rolls).

The thing about that summer that really made an impression on me was the number of children that were growing in homes in which neither parent cooked. Almost every day, a boy or a girl would come up to me, asking me how I made food that tasted to good. I told them that I liked to make all of my meals from scratch. They all would tell me they don’t eat like that at home. I while I was thrilled that the kids were enjoying my food, I also came away from those conversations a bit saddened that so many kids were growing up in homes with subpar culinary experiences.

A mom who is desperately needed my goulash recipe

One day while I was cooking lunch, the phone on the kitchen wall started ringing (which didn’t happen all too often). Picking up the phone, the district director who first interviewed me, asked me, “Steve, I have a mom who is desperately needing your goulash recipe. She said her son who is extremely picky came home from camp and could not stop raving about your cooking. She really would appreciate it if you could give her your goulash recipe”.

Listening to the director on the phone, I was somewhat pleasantly stunned. Some kid ate my goulash and it made a definitive culinary impression on him. Answering the director I said, “Well I a really don’t have an exact recipe. All I really do is add a good amount of garlic, Italian seasoning, and mozzaralla cheese.” She thanked me and let me get back to my cooking.

There is this insanely great price on government commodity catfish.

There was another time that the regional director called me with another food question. Picking up the phone, she asked, “Steve, do you have any experience cooking catfish?”.

Enthusiastic about the proposal I answered, “I love cooking catfish.”

“There is this insanely great price on government commodity catfish. I could have it to you by tomorrow.

“That would be great! Somewhere in that stack of commodities is a bag of cornmeal that I could use to bread it.”

Excited and in a rush to purchase a couple of cases of the catfish she hung up and sure enough, a guy with 20 pounds of frozen catfish came through the back door of the kitchen. Opening the boxes, I was very impressed, the catfish was skinned but still intact with the bones with each piece weighing about a pound each. I decided to cut each catfish body in half, bread the pieces bones and all in a seasoned cornmeal breading, and fry them in a big pot on my stove top.

When I finished cooking the catfish, I made a huge batch of tarter sauce and was excited to have a fish fry night at camp.

To my disappointment, I soon found out that there really weren’t all that many fish lovers in our camp. Hardly any of the catfish was even tried. Most of it ended up being thrown away. Not because the catfish wasn’t any good. I thoroughly enjoyed it, ate four pieces of it, and to this day consider it one of my best meals that I served all that summer.

As I was cleaning up, Sue came into the kitchen and told me that we she needed to talk to me. Going to the camp office, she was waiting for me, and asked me to sit down. She explained to me that while we had childhoods that involved meal experiences of eating catfish with the bones still in them, that I should have realized that children these days are not served such things and while I was serving amazing meals the catfish meal was totally unacceptable. She continued on this monologue for about 10 long minutes, telling me that in no way will I ever serve catfish again in her camp.

In my response, I smiled and said, “The next time the regional director asks me if I want to serve catfish, that I will kindly pass on the opportunity. Plus I only have one more week left for the camping season and there I am sure that the preparation of catfish will not an issue.

If everyone was unhappy with the catfish, they soon forgot about it for a couple of days later, I decided to take my cooking skills outdoors and threw everyone a sort of Hawaiian luau. Behind my kitchen was a very large fire rung that was never used. So I spent an afternoon gathering as much firewood as possible, found some lighter fluid in my cabin, and tapped into the primal Polynesian culinarian inside of me, and roasted a bunch of leg quarters on a large cooking grate that laid by the fire ring. If kids were not used to seeing anyone cooking in their kichens at home, then they really weren’t used to seeing a pyromaniac 20 something guy, cook a bunch of chicken over an open fire. I had plenty of chicken for everyone, made a huge batch of fried rice, and cut up a few large watermelons. Once again, I was everyone’s hero.

I was genuinely scared that the girl was going to die right there in the bathroom forever ending my culinary career right then and there.

After everyone was served, I went into the kitchen, and was starting to clean up, when one of the girls of the camp was hysterically crying, and ran into the bathroom and locked the door. The camp nurse following right behind her started banging on the bathroom door telling her that she needed to come out.

“What in the world is going on?, I asked.

“Steve, that’s the girl who has a severe allergy to nuts. Those fig newtons that you served have nuts in them and she mistakenly ate one of them and is having a reaction.”

“Crap! All week, I have been so careful not to put nuts in anything, but I didn’t check the ingredients of those cookie packages. “We need to get her out of the bathroom now!”

“She’s locked the door.” The nurse furiously pounded the door again. “You can come out and take your medicine and everything will be fine.”

Through her sobbing voice,“I don’t want to.”

I was genuinely scared that the girl was going die right there in the bathroom, forever ending my culinary career right then and there.

The nurse then pleaded with her one more time and to our relief, she came out still crying, but ready to take her medicine.

Never in my career I ever been so scared. After the incident was over, I sat down to regain for a moment and was literally shaking. The incident scared the hell out of me, but I learned that I have to take people’s food allergies seriously.

I hear that you can work miracles with government commodities.

A week later, the parents of the last camping group picked up their kids and the summer camping season was over. I not only had survived the summer, but for the most part I had thrived and I came in under budget. All in all, I could put my experience as a camp cook was a major win.

The following year, there was a new regional director for the Iowana Council, and she called me, asking me if I was interested in being the head cook at Camp Hitaga again this summer. “I hear that you can work miracles with government commodities.” I was now revered as a government commodity miracle worker. How many chefs can say that.

“Thank you for the offer, but I accepted a job at a resort in Minnesota.”

“At what resort?, she inquired.

“Madden’s Resort. It’s a few miles outside of Brainerd. There’s a chef there that I want to work for.”

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