In reading Chris’ latest poems, particularly the one about his experience making pudding, I thought about one of my less noteworthy culinary happenings, one in which I was but a victim.  It happened a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
………………..

When I was in high school (Holy Cross in New Orleans), Brother Daniel was the head chef/chief cook/guru/honcho/et al for the dining rooms, both the one for the brothers and the one for we boarding students.  I worked in the dining room as a boarder so we got to know each other.

He asked if I’d be interested in working for him at the summer camp Holy Cross owned in Waveland, Mississippi.  I liked and respected him, and he had a really neat sense of humor, so I got my folks’ permission and signed on for the summer of multiple 2-week sessions.  I’d be gone almost all summer.
 
It was to be the two of us and maybe one other like myself in the kitchen.  We’d do it all.  That sounded like a pretty tough commitment, but he assured me I’d have time to enjoy the things of camp life, and though I’d be bunked as a counselor I would not be responsible for doing such duties.  I was to be strictly his assistant.

The camp director was also the prefect of one of the school dormitories, the senior dorm, and was a pretty tough cookie.  His sense of humor peeked out seldom and in front of few.  I liked him but was nevertheless rather wary of him.  The fly in the ointment arrived in the form of the camp director’s nephew. 

So it was Brother Daniel, myself, and nephew-who-otherwise-couldn’t-get-a-paper-route. 
Thumbs, all thumbs. 

I did two jobs for weeks — mine, and his in rerun.  He couldn’t even make “bug juice,” a simple pour the mix into the water, stir like crazy, hide the mix so the mystery of what it really was remained intact (a commercially available punch drink), and dip large metal pitchers into the vat so the campers could serve the tables.

Nephew was totally inept in every way and Brother Daniel knew it early in our odyssey.  He couldn’t even manage to peel potatoes by dropping them into a machine that spun them against abrasive walls, a supposely foolproof endeavor.  Anything washed needed to be rewashed, and on and on.

I muttered and sometimes complained out loud and each time Brother Daniel would counsel me regarding patience, charity, understanding, and all those other wonderful gifts that were escaping me frequently and were wearing thin for Brother Daniel, too.  He was good, but he wasn’t made of stone. 

About three weeks into it, Brother Daniel came to me and apologetically said he was going to be gone for most of the morning and would be back in time to do very little prep for lunch, if at all.  It was up to me and nephew.  Oh, no.  No way, Brother!!  You can’t do this to me!!  The campers, and more importantly, the brothers on staff, will starve!  (Not to mention the inevitable calamity.)

“Robert, you will do fine.  Just keep an eye on our little one over there,” he said, nodding in nephew’s direction and winking a bit.  Brother Daniel and I had by this time come to an understanding.  I’ll mutter, but not too loudly, and he’ll allow that as my agreed-upon-as-necessary stress relief.  He even muttered once or twice himself where and so I could hear it. 

I think my first clue of Brother Daniel’s rising pressure was when, after another of Nephew’s screwups, he quietly commented to me through clenched teeth, “Now, now, Robert, we all must have a cross to bear.” Grrrrrrr.  Yes, Brother. The deal was that we would do our best to remain charitable and repent our shortcomings in the evenings.  Our wonderful old bagpiper priest was a soft touch anyway and seldom gave penance that couldn’t be completed in less than 3 minutes, or faster if your lips didn’t move.

So, after breakfast we did our best to clean up and close down, and then began lunch prep as quickly as possible, Brother Daniel departing sometime during the early process.  We were OK on bread (we made our own), but sheet cakes were needed, so some baking was in order, in addition to the usual central meal prep.

The ovens were going and the grill was now clean, so it was time to mix the scratch mix.  Nephew would have been better outside peeling potatoes, but with Brother Daniel gone he was free to rebel against my not too subtle distain for his lack of skill, so he insisted on doing the sheet cakes himself.  He began by getting flour all over the place when he finally managed to open the large bag.  Everything in this kitchen was commercial size — containers, prep surfaces, grills and ovens, and equipment.  There was no such thing as a small spill.  “OOPS!” was always in capital letters.

I figured if Nephew was to attempt sheet cakes on his own I’d get stuck with everything else, so I jumped into it quickly, basically ignoring Nephew.  He’d seen it done a dozen times and had played at least some role in almost as many, and he wasn’t about to let me in on it, so he was on his own.

All I can tell you is that at some point he had all the dry ingredients, and only the dry ingredients, in our large, commercial, humongous, man-eating mixer and he hit the switch. 

Unfortunately he moved it directly to the high speed setting AND he had the wrong beater on it.  Between the wrong attachment and the instant high speed, it took only seconds before the large bowl was empty and its contents were aerated over the entire kitchen area.

I was at the grill, and I remember as I turned around seeing the length and breadth of the kitchen as if we had been transported to a high cloud.  But the cloud was already slowly dissipating and falling all over everything, including my very hot grill and the hot tops of the ovens.   

As if called on cue, into the kitchen stepped Uncle, the camp director, apparently just looking for a snack.  For whatever reason, he happened to be in his wonderfully black cassock (unusual at camp during most of the day), which was quickly dusted with Nephew’s particles of angelic dust. 
In retrospect, I think it probable that Brother Daniel and Uncle had decided it wise that during Brother Daniel’s absence, perhaps Uncle should drop in or perhaps hang out nearby.  Whatever the plan, if there was one, it was short on execution and a total failure in prevention. 

EVERY surface was covered, including prepared food, and worst of all, my hot grill and ovens — the entire kitchen and all of its contents, covered in white flour just looking for trouble.

……

The campers and brothers/counselors had sandwiches for lunch that day, and when Brother Daniel returned we were still very much still resembling a fallen cloud.  Even with the quickly approved change of lunch menu there were a lot of sandwiches to be made and set up, all the while cleaning only what mess needed to be cleaned to accomplish the lunch prep.  The remainder would have to wait.

We somehow managed to clean the place up and still put on a decent supper meal, but it took a whole lot of work, during which Brother Daniel and I both wondered if it might have been better to just do the cleaning ourselves, but he was philosophically opposed to it.  Nephew was to participate in whatever he was most likely to accomplish without making a further mess, admittedly not easy considering the circumstances.

At the end of that camping session Nephew returned to his home.  I’d assumed he was at camp for the whole summer, in fact I thought he’d told me so, but there we were, Brother Daniel and I, alone with each other for the remainder of the summer, working hard, enjoying each other’s company, feeding campers and counselors in following sessions, I learning a lot from him, and for the most part, doing everything only once.

When we went back to school in September, Uncle stopped me one day and asked what I thought of working at summer camp.  I told him I had learned a lot from Brother Daniel and had enjoyed most of the experience.

He then said he had spoken with Brother Daniel and they wanted me to think about doing it again the following summer.

It seemed he was expecting some response, not a commitment, but at least something.  I was offering none because the following summer was a light year away at my age.

And then Uncle commented that Nephew wasn’t interested in coming back.

Heh.

Yep, I might enjoy doing that again next year.  We’ll have to see, and I’d need my folks’ permission again, but yes, that might just be a neat way to spend the summer.

……

Being in the military for most of my working years I’ve not had to concern myself with the newly hired nephew goings on, but I’ve seen a few unofficial “sponsorship” situations and have always been wary of them.

Got to tell you, I learned a lot in two summers at summer camp, especially that first one.

And I learned that dry flour is not a good thing on top of a very hot grill.