How many am I serving?

Last night was a little hectic in the dining hall. In addition to camp, we issued food for Scoutmaster's dinner, Easter Seals at Camp Eagle, and the council properties committee meeting. Unexpectedly, two additional tables had to be set in the dining hall. It's pretty hard to get table-ready food to appear from thin air. This got me thinking about the time that I scrambled the most in the dining hall. Unquestionably, it was 1990. It may have rained every day during staff week. Given the construction activity, camp was not ready to open, and Week 1 was postponed. The troops who had registered for Week 1 were told to come "whenever you want" later in the summer. Just how do you plan, order, and cook food for an unknown number of campers? Some weeks we were filling bowls 3/4 full and hoping we had enough to go around. Other times, we were throwing away 4" pans full of food. It was certainly a stressful, miserable summer for the dining hall. From that first summer comes my paranoia about having an extra day's worth of food on the shelf. We maintain high standards in the dining hall, both quantity and quality. As former staff member Gilligan used to say, "There is always food in Mom's dining hall," and every meal was his favorite.