The greatest benefit of working from home is is always being close to the family and being able to make time for their interests. My son's favorite activity is Scouting, which is all the camping, wood projects, pinewood derbies, great community service events and so much more than anyone could fit into a calendar. Wherever there are large dgroups of children, there must be food.
As much as I love to cook, with Scouting I am involved in many other aspects and we frequently call upon the parents and other groups of fine volunteers to keep us fed. As often as we safely can, we involve the boys too. Many of their advancements rely upon knowing how to plan a meal, budget the plan, go shopping and execute the meal with their family or in their den. The pack runs on food, no matter how you look at it.
The most frequent menu offering is Cub Scout Sirloin, aka hot dogs. We boil, grill, fry, campfire cook hot dogs. Scout parents are the Ninjas of the hot dog cooking world. Nutriton aside, the dogs are fast, easy and affordable.
Beyond the dogs, our annual Blue and Gold Banquet features a fine meatball and pasta dinner prepared at the Bristol Train of Artillery, one of those spectacular volunteer groups I was telling you about. I have already told you about feeding the Elks and the reason I joined is because of the awesome spring breakfast fundraiser that they put on for us. All you can eat french toast, scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages! I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. In the dens we've cooked mini pizzas in mini ovens, shared our favorite sandwiches and at least try to help teach the boys about fruits and vegetables, giving them plenty of exercise regardless of the meal.
The highlights of any Scout year are the camping trips. If you think we're living on cold cuts out of coolers, no no no. Of course, there will be hot dogs, but we really step it up around dinner time. the boys and their parents all prepare their own foil dinners. These are delicacies of burgers or chicken (boy's choices) with potatoes and veggies wrapped in cabbage and foil, cooked over charcoals. The cabbage really keeps everything from burning and is quite tasty on its own. Some parents have stepped up the foil dinners with steak tips and seafood too. These dinners are followed with the tastiest dessert in the world, stuffed bananas. The bananas are sliced down the middle in their skins, and stuffed with chocolate chips, marshmallows and nuts, wrapped in foil and grilled on those same charcoals. Oh My Oh My!
No camping trip would be complete without loads of snacks. Cub snacks include GORP, Good Old Raisins and Peanuts, or any blend of custom trail mix including home made granola, raisins, pretzels, mini bread sticks etc. At night, we have a parent leader who makes ovens out of cardboard and tinfoil to make pizzas on the campfire. Incredible! That same leader made eggs in a nest of ham and cheese in muffin tins for breakfast while i tried to keep up with the home fries. I'm sure that i'm forgetting something, so please send me a comment to remind me.
If you think that your boy would enjoy any of this kind of fun, our Recruting Rally for Pack 6 Bristol is Tuesday @ 6:00 pm At St. Mary's Church or visit www.beascout.org
No comments:
Post a Comment