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Kitchen
Impossible

by Pam Alexander
11-1999

    There’s no magic to feeding the folks who come here, just old fashioned elbow grease, a hide like a rhinoceros and a sense of humor which just will not die. And like everything else here at Four Quarters, it started with a crazy idea, somehow developed into a spiritual sensibility, and then came into being because other folks decided to support it in a very big way.
    When I first worked as Staff at Four Quarters in 1997, I was surprised to learn that with all the services provided by the Church, the Camp and the Staff; that the food service was catered. I had worked in large scale food service and I knew that food service can provide a valuable income stream for many organizations. And it seemed logical that learning how to feed people at Four Quarters could support our growth on many levels. My experience had taught me that making and breaking bread together is one of the most satisfying experiences of a group’s dynamic.
    So, true to my nature, I began to nag. I managed over the course of the next year to turn every point I made into something concerning food, but mostly I just began to feed folks. And other folks chipped in, and together we fed even more. And the more food we made, the more folks came by to eat it and I dropped the idea of nagging about feeding people because that’s what I was doing and it was good, mostly.

    Then came the Fall of 1998 and Four Quarters was closed for "The Divorce," but we were still feeding folks and they were still gathering at our table in the Farmhouse, still breaking bread together even though they knew it was as close to camp as they could get. We fed each other, and not just food, cause by now we were feeding so many people it was ‘we’ and not ‘I’. And surely that’s how community grows. The Church secretary became a great breakfast waitress, Doc Johnson perfected Army flapjacks and Orren answered all the requests for "Four Quarters Rocket Fuel", his famous morning coffee. The Sunday morning question was ‘How many and how?’ It referred to eggs and I thought about eggs… all their mystery, all their potential, all they began to mean.
    When you fry eggs at the farmhouse, you end up with your back turned to all the goings on, and while my back was turned contemplating the spiritual truths inherent in eggs, there were things a-stirring, but I was feeding folks and I did not notice.

    The Men’s Gathering organizers showed up, but my back was turned… I was making eggs. Something about wanting an on-site kitchen; but so what, everybody wants something. I flipped my eggs and I missed the discussions of funding and how to build a usable kitchen by spring. But Camp was still closed and I thought of how these guys were risking their own gathering, with their own years of history and success stories, by putting their faith and their cash on the line to book a camp that was closed. And I flipped some more eggs. So how they decided to build the kitchen I don’t know, because I was frying eggs. But what happened afterwards, I can talk about.
    I made menu after menu, I quit frying eggs and turned my family and church members into the lab rats of my culinary experiments. I cajoled, buffaloed, and wheedled myself a staff. I felt confident and strong. And as I was testing quiches and obscure pasta sauces, poking my face into bubbling pots and pricing produce; bulldozers and gravel trucks were driving past the Farm House and up into the site. A man came knocking on the door telling me that his cinder block truck was lost, did I know where it was? And the menfolk disappeared all day long, returning covered in mud and sweat. They were building what I thought was a kitchen, which later I learned was to be much more; a Church Meeting Hall and Center.

    Then the day came when the menfolk were behind me pulling me away from the stove. Do you want to see your kitchen, they asked? Did I ever! I have a great belief that when someone is working you let ‘em alone and let ‘em get on with it. And in my head, I saw ‘my’ kitchen up on the hill. It looked like a cross between Ms. Santa’s place and the home of the Keebler Elves, with a generous swirl of covers of "Gourmet" magazine. I got in the car and rode to camp. When we got up the hill, I opened my eyes, and gasped. "My" kitchen on the hill was a big muddy hole with tall cinder block walls, covered with two by fours and a screaming yellow tarp. All the money, all the time, all the work had made a big hole, a really big hole. And as I looked at the proud, mud stained faces peering at me with trowels in hand, I think I finally said something about how big it was. And I hope the Goddess granted me enough grace to forbear mentioning the mud.
    Beltaine came and went with pot roast for 125, exploding couscous, a potato peeling party that kept us up most of the night, and two marriage proposals! The Men’s Gathering arrived and we learned that the generator wouldn’t run the refrigerators, that we didn’t have a can opener, and that the dog stole the bacon . But we were laughing in the kitchen, and folks were eating and the food was good. In fact, very good. The Men of the Gathering showered us with their praise and appetites. And made their plans for next year. At Drum and Splash we were still struggling with equipment failures, but we Pit Roasted three whole pigs and had ourselves a fine old style Pig Pickin Party. Each festival brought its own share of new giggles and groans, but bellies were filled and even the little girl who drank the bee that flew into her lemonade was smiling.

    Since the close of the 1999 season we have purchased more refrigeration, and have baited our hooks for real restaurant style ovens and stoves. And we finally purchased a generator big enough not just for the Kitchen, but to run the entire Camp. They tell me that they will begin work on the walls with the first thaw and we might even have the first floor finished by next fall.
Looking back the kitchen in its first season was a big consumer of Church and Human resources, and the profit never happened at all… unless you want to count everyone that ate and shared food together, the prayers that were said, the folks who gained experience and confidence in themselves… and the community that grew.


    How successful we were all depends on where you draw the bottom line.

    Pretty successful,
    looking back from spring, 2004!