Food at The Universe

The Universe operates somewhat like a co-op when it comes to food. Most camp members bring food to share with others, and we have volunteer shifts to cook a dinner for the whole camp every night (and clean up afterwards!). We don't charge dues to participate in the camp food plan, which works out if most camp members contribute. We are able to reimburse people who want to cook dinner but don't want to pay out of pocket for the ingredients; please ask on the mailing list for details.

For each event, we look for volunteers to sign up to plan and cook a dinner every night (sometimes excluding early arrival or the first day of the event). We want at least two people to sign up to cook, and two to clean – usually, one person is the “big cook” and handles planning the meal, and the other “little cook” helps out with preparation, etc., but this is up to the people who sign up. We also want two people to sign up to clean up after the meal – this means the cooking and preparation dishes only; we expect camp members to clean their own eating dishes. Splitting it up this way means that the cooks get to relax after serving dinner. Volunteering for one of these slots will only take an hour or two of the event, and is a great way to contribute to the camp.

Dinner cooks are encouraged to prepare food ahead of time if it makes sense, whether that means making a whole chili ahead of time and freezing it, or just doing some initial preparation of vegetables to make things quicker in the woods. While we do generally have enough kitchen supplies to get things done, there is limited space, so thinking about what you can do at home before the event to save time is worth it. Ask the mailing list if you have a recipe idea but aren't sure how to make it happen in the woods! Meals should be prepared for something like 50-75% of the number of people in the camp at a given event, because it is normal for some fraction of the camp to not be hungry at dinnertime, want to prepare their own food, or otherwise not end up eating the camp dinner. Aiming for less than 100% is a way to help avoid excessive food waste, since we almost always end up having leftovers that we try to give away to people outside the camp.

Dinner is served at 18:00, which is also when the daily camp meeting starts. Cooks should plan accordingly, meaning that the kitchen normally is taken over for dinner preparation at around 16:00-16:30. Other camp members should be respectful of the camp cooks, and try to avoid getting in the way of dinner preparations if possible. Cleaners should be ready to start cleaning by 19:00 at the latest, and ideally should start right after the camp meeting, so that food doesn't sit around and get stuck on dishes. It's also sometimes possible to cleaners to clean dishes while the cooks are working.