by Jeff Weener
There’s a rumor around town that Camp Yavneh only serves pasta at every meal. Hmm.., I guess if it were true, we could at least be creative and serve a different shape at every meal. OK, so it is partially true. We do serve pasta at every lunch and dinner as an option for those campers who don’t like the main course option at that meal.
In preparation for camp, I thought I’d let you, our parents, in on the food secrets of camp. You can certainly use this info however you want, but my hope is you will be able to have more fruitful conversation (food pun intended) with your kids about making healthy choices by knowing about the food options at camp. So, here goes:
Breakfast
- Most popular items: Cheesy eggs and Belgian waffles.
- Most unique breakfast of the season: July 4th. Pancakes with blueberries, strawberries and whipped cream.
- Healthiest options: Israeli salad, fresh oatmeal, cottage cheese, yogurt, hard boiled eggs and non sweetened cereal
Shabbat breakfast
- Special from our bakery – coffee cake, cottage cheese, Israeli salad, cereal – sweet ened and not, cut up fresh fruit and yogurt
Lunch
- Most popular items: Grilled cheese on multigrain bread with tomato soup and pizza or any kind of soup
- Most unique lunch: Fish tacos
- Healthiest options: Extensive salad bar with fresh vegetables, legumes, freshly prepared grain salads (quinoa, rice), tuna salad hummus
- Alternatives: Vegan, gluten free and allergy sensitive options are always available.
- Dessert: Cut up fruit is served at the end of lunch two days per week.
Shabbat lunch
- Fresh baked challah rolls, turkey, corned beef, cholent (vegetarian and meat options), kugel, salads and tofu
Dinner
- Most popular items: General Tso’s chicken, rib steaks, fajitas and salmon
- Most unique dinner: Any ethnic dinner (Canada, Morocco, Israel, Asia, etc)
- A cool thing to know: Vegetables are served on a bar and the campers choose different hot vegetable. Since implementing the bar, our vegetable consumption has doubled.
- Alternative: Vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and allergy sensitive options are always available. Pasta is always available. Thursday night is vegetarian night at camp. (meatless Thursdays)
- Dessert: A fresh dessert from our bakery is available at dinner
Shabbat dinner
- Best meal of the week!!
- Most popular items: Everything 🙂 Chicken soup, various appetizers and Israeli salad bar
- Most unique dinner: What can we say, this dinner is based on Mesoret (tradition) – it gets unique when they alter the amazing chicken recipes.
- A cool thing to know: We use only fresh healthy ingredients in our cooking. While many institutions use artificial soup bases and other ingredients, ours are top quality natural products. Ours is the best kosher chicken soup in all of New Hampshire
- Dessert: Our famous fresh baked chocolate cake
- Alternative: A full parallel meal is creatively cooked for all who are vegan, vegetarian or allergic.
Did we talk yet about Seudat Shlishit (Saturday dinner)?
- The famous mac and cheese your kids talk about? Only natural ingredients. We make the sauce ourselves and use high quality sharp cheddar (specially sourced from Washington state). And the orange color? Annatto extract (plant product).
- Fresh rolls, Greek salad and an extensive salad bar
- This meal ends with the famous camp M & M cookie
Lastly, we’d like you to know we endeavor to make the food as healthy as possible. We use unbleached flours, reduce trans fats and high fructose corn syrup and attempt to use whole grains as much as possible.
Do you have any questions about food that are not yet answered, please be in touch with me via email at jeff@campyavneh.org
