Fresh From the Garden
Once or twice a year, I have a weekend get-together with some friends from summer camp. We met in junior high at Fowler Camp & Retreat Center, a Christian camp in the Adirondacks that we all attended until we graduated from high school, and then most of us went on to volunteer as camp counselors or work on staff.
If you know me in real life, you know that I have a thing for flamingos. I have a flamingo tattoo on the back of my neck, and own flamingo-themed t-shirts, jewelry, glassware and stuffed animals. The reason is these amazing women who I count among my oldest, dearest friends.
At Camp Fowler, the boys’ cabins are named after woodland animals (though some of my bad teenage poetry graces the walls of said cabins) and the girls’ cabins are named after woodland birds. One year, a new cabin was built, and was to be named the Owl cabin. Abby, Amanda, Holly and I (and the fifth member of our group, who defected and therefore shall not be named) decided that, since there was no sign affixed to the cabin yet, we’d take some creative license and call ourselves the Flamingo cabin. We annoyed the crap out of the camp staff and volunteers, refusing to answer to “Owl,” and finally, everyone relented and started referring to us as the flamingos. And it stuck throughout our remaining years at camp, and beyond.
Despite living in different cities and states, and weddings, moves and babies, we still manage to get together every year. This past weekend found us in Nashua, NH, at Holly’s house. Our weekends tend to revolve around food, and eating at Holly’s was a treat, because she has an amazing garden.
Here’s the lunch spread from Saturday:
Believe me when I say I could eat bakery-fresh bread, garlic scape hummus, pesto, raw milk cheese, avocados, carrots, fresh edamame, tomatoes, cucumbers and herb butter every day. All the produce was from her garden, and we found the plums on a tree outside her office. I couldn’t eat plums every day, though, as I’m not a big fan of raw fruit.
Lest you think we eat like total hippies all weekend, you should know that we also drank a whole lot of wine and ate a whole lot of candy, and went out to a pub one night, where we consumed a whole lot of fried food. And there was ice cream, too. I like to think that this lunch, and our breakfasts made with fresh eggs from Amanda’s chicken coop, balanced everything out.
And here we all all dressed up for our big night out. From left: Abby, Holly, Me, Amanda
If no one has any more babies, the next reunion’s going to be in Brooklyn. Let that be a warning to you, NYC.
