Camp Spoonhowopic » Kathy Copic

Meal 4: Feast! (Part 2)

Kathy Copic — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:31:03 +0000

In Part 1 of the Feast, we told you about the 100 hungry folks sitting down to eat together for our big Saturday night dinner. The first courses were warming people up — gazpacho, beets and cheese, potatoes and cheese — did I mention that we like cheese?

For the next course, the beef Wellington was Fred’s idea, but lots of people worked hard to make it happen: Aaron and Eileen, Ben and Janine, and Jeff Solomon all helped with the preparation. Bill and Dorothea helped with the cooking and serving.

We bought the beef from a smaller, local producer — you know, the kind of woman who is happy to show you the cows that she keeps. We found just the place in Elizabeth, PA (just south of Pittsburgh). (She also explained a bit about the, ahem, mechanics of breeding her cattle. Those of you that have discussed similar topics with Brian Manning would not have been at all surprised.) Janice Palmer’s ranch is called “WH Cattle.” Our local food co-op sometimes gets beef from there, so when we asked about ordering meat at the co-op, they put us directly in touch with Janice. Buying directly from the farm has not only psychological benefits, but financial benefits as well — we were pleasantly surprised at the prices per pound for the beef after eliminating all those middlemen.

As you can see in the picture below, we had a real assembly line going putting the wellingtons together!

Individual Beef Wellington
by Fred Niell
(This makes 1/5 of what we prepared for the feast: enough for about 20 people.)

The recipe is 4 steps. 1) Marinade 2) Make Mushroom Duxelle 3) Assemble Wellingtons, and Bake 4) Make Marchand du Vin

Beef Marinade

1 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons thyme
2 tablespoons sage
12 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons cracked pepper
1 onion, in food processor to chop
3 cups shiraz, drier the better
5 lbs (20 x 4ish oz filets)

Combine ingredients in very large bowl or ziplocks. Refrigerate until needed, at least 4 hours.

Mushroom Duxelles

4 lbs mushrooms
1 stick butter
1 cup shallots
1 cup shiraz
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon pepper

Finely chop shallots in food processor. Set aside. Chop mushrooms in food processor. Sweat the shallots in the butter over medium to medium-high heat until golden. Add mushrooms, reduce heat to medium until mushrooms just begin rendering liquid. Add salt, pepper, and wine. Reduce until you have about 1/2 cup liquid. Pour off liquid and reserve, add liquid to marinading beef. Place mushrooms covered in a bowl or other container, refrigerate until time to assemble Wellingtons.

Wellington Assembly & Cooking

1 sheet of puff pastry will typically make 2 wellingtons, so 50 small sheets (plus another 10 or so for decoration)
6 eggs, beaten for egg wash
beef from above
mushrooms from above

Remove filets from marinade, pat dry. Reserve marinade. Remove remaining liquid from the mushroom mixture. Place the cut puff pastry on floured surface. Place one spoonful of mushroom duxelle in center, place filet on top of mushrooms, and top with one more spoonful of mushrooms. Carefully draw corners of pastry together, pinching seams. You can seal with eggwash, but this is not necessary. Flip over the wellington, seam-side down. Carefully smush so it sits flat. Apply decorative cutout puff pastry piece on top, eggwash the top. Place 4 rows of 4 wellingtons on cookie sheets for baking. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. If refrigerating longer than an hour or so, cover with plastic wrap. In this state, they can stay in the fridge for more than 24 hours. Preheat oven to 400. Bake for ~30 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown. Tent with foil and bake for another 20 minutes, using thermometer on one test piece to determine done-ness. The ones at the edge of the sheet are rarer, but not much. Serve on plate with a small lake of sauce around the wellington. Garnish with some green parsley or something — we used a single roasted carrot.

Marchand de Vin Sauce

1 cup beef stock
1 stick butter
4 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup green onion chopped
6 cloves garlic chopped
1/2 cup shallots chopped
pepper, salt
1/2 cup shiraz
reserved marinade

Mix up the reserved marinade. Each batch of sauce will be making a final 2+ cups of sauce, so choose pots accordingly. Sautee shallots and garlic in butter until fragrant, then add flour a little at a time to make nice golden roux. Slowly add 1 C of marinade and stock. Add bay leaf if desired. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, or until reduced to a little over 2 cups. Just before starting to serve, mix in remaining 1/2 C shiraz. Finished sauce will keep consistency for quite some time at very low heat.

Portobello “Galoshes” (as the vegetarian/vegan version of the Wellingtons came to be known in the kitchen) were based on a recipe that Rose forwarded from a friend of hers. We added more nuts as we thought their roast-y flavor filled out the dish nicely. All the mushrooms used at Camp came from Creekside Mushrooms the world largest underground mushroom farm — found right here in southwestern PA!

Like the Beef Wellingtons, most of the preparation is done in a food processor. We definitely learned a lot about cooking for crowds over the weekend including shortcuts like this: when a recipe calls for quartering mushrooms before putting them in a food processor, skip the knife and just tear them into pieces with your fingers!

Portobello Wellington
(makes 2 servings)

1 small clove garlic
1 inch green onion
1 oz pecans
1 tablespoon olive oil plus some for brushing
4 oz button & crimini mushrooms, quartered
1 portobello mushroom (about 4 oz)
puff pastry or phyllo dough

Add the garlic, onion, pecans, and oil to a food processor and blend to a coarse, mealy paste. Then add the small mushrooms and process them until they are chopped into relatively small pieces. Brush the portobello with oil and salt it. Stuff it with the nut-mushroom filling and then cut in it half. Wrap each half in pastry and bake at 425 for about 20 minutes. Top with Cashew Parsley sauce. Careful! These will be super hot for several minutes!

Cashew Parsley Sauce

2.5 oz cashews, toasted
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 tablespoon soy
1/2 tablespoons parsley
(up to) 1 tablespoon cornstarch
(up to) 1.5 cups water

Blend everything but the cornstarch and the water to a fine paste. Add the paste, half the water, and half the cornstarch and bring just to a boil. (Rose thought it tasted a little too cornstarch-y with the full tablespoon. We had also run out of soy sauce by Saturday night so we just used extra salt.)

Both meat and veggies were nicely complimented by a red wine: Hoya de Cadenas Tempranillo from Spain.

Desserts were baked, of course, by several busy campers on Saturday afternoon. Dana, Alana, Aaron & Eileen, Sarah Kent, and my mom Cyndi all made pies for the glory of their various teams. The pies were judged to be quite excellent. My grandparents also planned ahead and added a cake to the dessert table for everyone to share. The ice cream served on Saturday (and Sunday morning) came courtesy of Brian, Dana, and Julia from Manning Farm Dairy. The milk came from them too! Hooray!

Meal 4: Feast! (Part 1)

Kathy Copic — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:43:52 +0000

Saturday evening, there was a flurry of activity. As tasks were finished in the kitchen, items were crossed out on the many lists with Sharpie markers. At some point, Aaron asked when we were planning to get to the dining room, and spoons smiled and replied, “Have you been out there lately?” The long tables were already set for 100 people with mismatched tablecloths, plates and silverware, pitchers of water… counts were being called into the kitchen: “We need 6 more knives!” and the Camp Turner staff were shaking their heads at us in amusement.

Course 0: Chickpea Amuse Bouche

Campers started to gather and our Master of Ceremonies, Tom Rammer, announced the first course, a chickpea amuse bouche, A.K.A. “appetizer.” The idea for the dish came from some excellent deep-fried chickpeas I had at Tia Pol with Dan & Manely. We didn’t want to mess with deep-frying, so we just tossed some chickpeas in the oven with olive oil, good kosher salt, and spanish paprika.

Course 1: Gazpacho

While people were snacking on hot chickpeas and bringing out the first bottles of wine, we also brought out a pitcher of gazpacho for each table. The gazpacho recipe was a mixture of inspiration from the ingredients at hand, a recipe of Fred’s, and the excellent French Laundry gazpacho recipe.

Nearly all the vegetables (including tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, garlic, potatoes, beets, carrots, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, cilantro, and parsley) came from from Mark Printz at Canticle Farm in Olean, NY and from Mark Shindlebeck in Franklinville, NY. We originally learned about consumer-supported agriculture while living in Pittsburgh — you must have heard us talking about our “veggie box” during the last few summers. When we were thinking about fresh produce for the camp weekend, we realized there must be some similar farms providing local vegetables near the park. We looked online and found lots of places! (Want to find one close to you?)

The first wine served with dinner was C. Mendes Vinho Verde from Portugal. It was slightly bubbly, recommended to go with the very acidic gazpacho — I thought it worked well!

Course 2: Potato Galette

The potato galette comes from one of our favorite cooking magazines, Fine Cooking. It was super easy (once spoons’s siblings and Janine cleaned all 25 pounds of potatoes): no need to peel Yukon golds, just slice them in the food processor and layer them with cheese. Good cheese!

Course 3: If you think you don’t like beets, you’re probably wrong.

We picked up salad greens in Allegany, NY on Thursday. We were a little worried about how to clean and dry greens for 100 people, but Stephen and Laura got it done using a remarkable technique suggested by Rose: soak, rinse, then put a couple of heads in a clean pillowcase and spin rapidly over your head. The spinning part is best performed outside, but it worked great!

That wonderful chevre came from Vermont Butter & Cheese Co. (via Aaron and Eileen). (Vermont Cheese and Butter also supplied a lot of the butter we used during the weekend, especially for the corn bread and at the table. Their cultured, lightly salted butter is the best! 86% butterfat!) The dressing was a simple vinaigrette based on Agrodolce vinegar (via Zingerman’s and Bill and Dorothea), olive oil, salt, pepper, and (at Fred’s insistence) a touch of fresh ginger.

The beets in the salad came from Canticle Farms. Cooking beets in the oven is easy and tasty — once they are roasted you can toss them in salads or heat them up as a veggie side dish, or combine them with some garlic and yogurt to make a delicious indian dish. To roast beets, prepare whole beets by scrubbing them and cutting off the beet greens, if attached. Wrap them individually in aluminum foil or put a bunch in a pan and cover tightly with foil. Before covering them, toss them with some olive oil and salt. Roast beets for 1-2 hours at 375 depending on their sizes. A knife should slide easily into the beet, through the foil, when it is done. We got a LOT of beets in our Pittsburgh veggie box from Kretschmann’s and we learned to love them. We were happy to see so many other people enjoy them on Saturday night.

In the sequel: recipes for beef and portobello Wellingtons!

Works Cited

Kathy Copic — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 02:23:32 +0000

(KAC in brown. DJS in orange.)

KAC: Looking out at all the amused and giggling faces of our friends and family at Camp Spoonhowopic, spoons and I were wondering if people recognized pieces of their own events and weddings in our Camp plans. We have been thanking many people who helped at the Camp weekend, but there are others who taught us something much longer ago.

Brian and Dana Manning’s wedding was probably the first wedding spoons and I went to together. The entire thing was traditional but also personally hand-crafted. The vows were so specific (”Here, on this beautiful farm…”) and the Manning milk bottle centerpieces and ice cream cake were homemade. I remember sitting down before the ceremony with a bunch of college friends and just reading the vows in the program was making us cry. The officiant of the ceremony also did an excellent job making it clear why all the guests were in attendance, something I hadn’t really thought about before. She explained that it wasn’t just Brian and Dana that were involved in the ceremony, but all of us who were there. All of us are a part of their lives, important to them as they are important to each other. They passed the wedding rings around the whole group in attendance so that each of us could touch them and be a part of the ceremony. Our friend J made them a wedding video, and I got a copy of it on my laptop. I must have showed it to everyone I knew, because both the wedding and the video were so well done. One of my favorite scenes takes place after the ceremony when J asks Brian, “So, you’re married! What are you gonna do now?” Brian grins in his tux and said, “Stay the same!”

We really enjoyed all these things that Brian and Dana emphasized in their ceremony: involving their whole community of beloved family and friends, their personality and do-it-yourself-ness, and the fact that the wedding (while a big, fun, important thing) wasn’t changing their day-to-day relationship much. In the following years, a lot of other people we knew shared similar ideas in their events.

Involving a whole community means getting everyone in the same room. Getting them to feel comfortable enough to get to know each other and have fun is another challenge. Ann Arbor friends Sara & Brian had some skeptics when they announced that they were having a karaoke reception, but after they had the guts to sing the first duet (”Don’t go breaking my heart!”) how could we refuse? Next up was a little girl who sang “Dancing Queen” with an older family member — if you need a fearless leader to get up in front of strangers and show you how it’s done, sometimes a ten year-old is the person to ask. Whether or not people were serious or silly, the karaoke gave everyone an opportunity to participate and to laugh together.

DJS: Of course, there is always singing at weddings! At Lauryn and Bill’s reception, Lauryn’s parents led everyone in singing a new version of the Cornell alma mater that they wrote explaining the bride and groom’s courtship. (This prompted some of Lauryn and Bill’s friends to hastily compose and perform (in beat-poet-style) their own musical toast.) One of things that we really liked about Lauryn’s parents’ toast was that it felt like we all learned something about her parents. Because everyone lives in different places, we don’t often get to meet many of our friends’ families, and this was a rare chance to do that.

KAC: Tom and Laura managed to get their parents and siblings in to NYC for almost a week so that they could spend some time together. Tom’s mom gave a particularly memorable toast at their post-ceremony picnic in which she explained that there are words in Russian for “my son’s wife’s mother” and “my son’s wife’s father” and that she was welcoming not only a new daughter, but a new “mother of my son’s wife” and “father of my son’s wife” into her life — people she will know and share things with for the rest of her life. Not only did Tom and Laura get to spend with their own families, but they also created a way for their families to get to know each other much better over a shared NYC vacation.

DJS: In the case of Jeff and Marie’s wedding, it wasn’t a chance to meet Jeff’s parents (who are my aunt and uncle) that I enjoyed, but a chance to see his parents as guests of honor. It really meant a lot to me to see them so happy and so proud as they stayed late at the reception, laughing and dancing. It made me think, I want to be able to thank my parents like this too!

So after all of these great ceremonies, why were we still holding out? Was there not clear and indisputable evidence that weddings could be awesome? Last year at Graham and Sarah’s wedding, we had one more log to throw on the proverbial campfire. In addition to lots of singing and music (and a marriage contract that we all signed and a homemade chupah and a quote from a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling), Graham and Sarah decided that they needed a unity ceremony that was entirely their own. And though peanut butter and jelly has long been used a metaphor for good two things that are even better together, Graham and Sarah took this metaphor quite literally. In the middle of their ceremony, they got out two jars and a loaf of bread and explained how two things, which despite being different, can be great together. They made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and then they ate it! It was great!

It made us think: if a particular piece of a ceremony doesn’t fit, you can decide not to do it, but you can also create of your own instead. When you omit something (like… a wedding?), people might notice its absence, but by creating something new (like the PB&J) Graham and Sarah really got our attention! And they shared something about themselves and about what was important to them: not taking things too seriously, doing things that felt true to them, and feeling free to make something new.

Camp Spoonhowopic: so crazy that it just might work, or just so crazy?KAC: So, to create something new, we had to figure out how to do it. Could we cook dinner for 100 people? We have been cooking seven course meals for spoons’s birthday for years now. Sharing a long, slow meal is another good way of getting people to get to know each other. (And what would a copic/spoons event be without yummy food?!) At Daniel and Katrine’s combined “57th” birthday party, they and their friends cooked a multi-course meal for nearly 50 people in their own tiny kitchen. We also been going to (and helping with) similar gatherings hosted by my dad and big dinners and receptions with homemade food on both sides of our families.

DJS: Another project that helped us figure out how to organize a big event was not a ceremony at all. In 2006, Tom and a couple of other students and I ran a programming contest that was played by over a thousand other people! What did we do? Well, we came up with the problems and figured how to judge them; we publicized and organized and wrote software. How did this have anything to do with a weekend in the outdoors? First, like Camp Spoonhowopic, it was an entirely volunteer effort. This meant getting people motivated to help, to come up with creative ideas, and to take ownership. Second, we had to motivate the participants and get them to play along. This meant getting the essential facts straight and communicating them clearly. It also meant focusing on those few things that would really matter: for Camp, that was a good name, the right location, the right props (in other words, the bandannas). One thing I learned in the programming contest was how little back story you needed for people to believe that there was a back story. When one camper (a new member of the copic/spoons network) asked, “How many years have they been running Camp?” I felt we had gotten enough of those details right.

KAC: So, weddings, birthdays, programming contests — all of these and more helped inspire us. The celebration that we owe the most to is Daniel and Katrine’s wedding in the woods. They asked family and friends to spend a weekend together around the campfire, they had a blog with family introductions, they served a ton of people a sit-down dinner… sound familiar? When I talked to Daniel after the weekend, I asked him what he liked best about the whole thing. He talked about how amazing it was to have so many friends and family in one place, where they could relax. While that is a common sentiment expressed by anyone having a wedding, he went on to describe the coziness that the camping atmosphere provided. Daniel said one of his favorite moments was waking up to find his friend Mike making french toast in the big kitchen for whomever was hungry, and I thought: “I want that!” Daniel and Katrine had created an environment where people could feel at home and be themselves.

Even after the excitement generated by the idea of inviting everyone to a camp with a big dining hall, believe it or not, we still couldn’t get excited about having a wedding ceremony. But, we did want our family and friends to be under one roof. We did want to recognize and thank our parents: we wanted them to be our guests of honor. We wanted to give our families some time to bond, like Tom and Laura’s families had. We wanted an environment where people could do projects together and participate and get to know each other while they were doing it. And we wanted to have french toast. (With Manning ice cream on top!)

Meal 0.5: Friday Lunch with Iron Chef Niell

Kathy Copic — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 20:08:10 +0000

This meal is out of order, but it comes to me by email from our CFO (Chief Food Officer) Mr. Fred Niell. Fred writes:

Meal 0.5 was Friday Lunch, which was as unplanned as it was thrown together. Copic walked into the kitchen at 11:30 and mentioned that there were 3 lbs of dry pasta in a bag in the corner, 1 quart jar of Ragu. I felt like it was an episode of Iron Chef, except that the challenge ingredient was the lack of time, menu, or preparation. But, we had wine, tomatoes, squash, carrots, onions, garlic, basil, oregano, mushrooms, and whatever else was nearby. I can’t really remember what all went into the 4-ish quarts of sauce I made. I may have also added the remainder of the pizza tomato sauce. I boiled the pasta to al-dente in salted, oiled water. Then I tossed the pasta into a steamtable tray along with sauce, and tossed with 1.5 cups parmesan cheese. Then topped with more cheese – all while hot. Voila. Hardly gourmet, but hey – it was on the table by 12:10, and all gone before I finally had a chance to sit down to eat it.

Meal 2: Breakfast

Kathy Copic — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:32:23 +0000

Bill and Dorothea Coleman took charge of breakfast on Saturday, and they got some help from spoons’s sister, Rachel, and dad, Tom. The meal included pancakes, bacon, eggs, and omelets made-to-order. Since most of the preparation for Saturday’s dinner happened on Friday, the breakfast-makers did their best to use up extra mushrooms, bell peppers, and anything else leftover from early preparations. We don’t have crazy recipes to share from Saturday breakfast, but here are some notes on ingredients. (And don’t worry: the caramel French toast is coming soon!)

Eggs came from Mick Luber at Bluebird Farm in Cadiz, OH (thanks to Laura Wies and the Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association for giving us his contact information and to Ryan for picking them up at the Bloomfield Market) and David Yodel at NuWay Farm in Cochranton, PA. The bacon came from Niman Ranch.

We bought coffee from our favorite Pittsburgh roaster: Coffee Tree Roasters. Maple syrup (grade B!) was from Fuller’s Sugarhouse in Lancaster, NH and imported by Aaron and Eileen.

On Thursday morning, spoons and I made a produce run to a couple of local farms and farm stands. We stopped at a farm stand in Allegany, NY* and picked up all the apples, pears, peaches, plums, and other fruit used at breakfast and throughout the weekend. Except the bananas… ’cause they don’t grow in New York.

*Google has totally failed us in remembering the name of this farm stand. We think something like “Bachmeyer’s” but it had some other spelling. We found it again on Google maps, but we still can’t come up with the name. Bonus points to anyone who can find it!

The glorious series of tubes that is the internet.

Kathy Copic — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 21:54:44 +0000

Want to find out what other campers have been doing since camp? Or before they got there? Check out these Spoonhowopian blogs and websites (in no particular order)!

Stags!
Stefan (with Elephant Larry)
Biz
Kat (here is her camp post!)
Stephen
Ryan
Alana
Rose (veggie recipes)

Eagles!
Jeff (with Elephant Larry)
Jaime (and her camp post)
Cortney
Tom 7
Fred (science!)

Lions!
Jason (camp posts 1, 2, 3, 4)
Adam
J (camp posts start here)
Martha (great photos!) (camp posts start here)
Brian (and his camp post)
Aaron & Eileen (or read older adventures)
Heather H (science!)
Babak (science!)

Turtles!
Tina
Liz
Kate (food, books, more)

Music, Photos, and other stuff people make:
Jeff (music)
Jason (music) (fonts)
Jason and Adam (prints, t-shirts)
Jason and HH and spoons (music) (and this one, too!)
Cortney (photos)
Tom 7 (photos) (music) (books) (fonts)
Kat (music) (more music)
John (music)
Aaron (fire juggling, music)
Heather P (photos)
Martha (photos)
Bo (photos)
Cyndi (book)
Ryan (amazing compendium of 80’s sax solos)
Alana (photos)
Jeff and Stefan sketch comedy (this too!)
Biz (comedy)

Did we miss anybody? Let us know.

Also, there are over 30 camp alumni on Facebook. It’s not so bad, really. There is Scrabble. If you succumb to Facebook, join the Camp Spoonhowopic group there.

Another way to keep in touch is the Spoonhowopic Forum. Let us know if you have questions about it.

Whew!

Kathy Copic — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 23:20:56 +0000

Hey everybody. We made it home, and we hope your trip back went well, too!

That was … well, it was awesome. (Do I say “awesome” too much? Perhaps.)

We’ll be posting more links here as we wrap up, but we wanted to thank everybody again for making it such a great weekend. It seemed both so short and so long. On the way back, I was going to say something and I started with “On the first day — at the first breakfast — wait … that was yesterday. Yeah. At Saturday breakfast, which was yesterday, I guess…”

Also, we’ve started collecting a few lost things — let us know if you’ve lost or found something by leaving a comment here.

Much love to you all!

It does a body good…

Kathy Copic — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:12:49 +0000

It’s good to have friends who are dairy farmers, because emails like this don’t sound bizarre to them:

“Also, do you think you could bring some milk? Like a lot?”

Travel Tips from Tina

Kathy Copic — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 21:43:51 +0000

Our friend Tina Lund has volunteered to help out with travel for Camp Spoonhowopic. Since none of us actually live in Allegany State Park, we all have to get there somehow. Tina is a seasoned traveller, and can help answer some of your questions about getting into camp easily.

She’s living in Florida these days, though I met her in Chicago and she hails from Nebraska. She has been known to jaunt off to see a concert in Germany or plan a drive to Mexico to enjoy a beer on the beach with Roger Clyne.

If you sent back a questionnaire with a “carpool: yes!” box checked, Tina should be contacting you soon. If not, and you are interested in providing a ride to someone else, let Tina know by emailing travel@campspoonhowopic.com or calling her at the number in your camp info packet. (Or let us know!) The same goes if you are looking for a ride, either from the city that you live in, or from an airport close to camp.

As the weekend approaches, Tina will be helping us confirm your travel plans to make sure everyone gets in safe and sound.

More information than you can shake four sticks at!

Kathy Copic — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:13:21 +0000

If you’re coming here for the first time, or the first time in a long time, here are a few of the most important things to check out:

Have questions? We’ve got answers, and general information about Camp on the FAQ.

If you want to get a picture of what Camp Spoonhowopic will be like, check out our slideshow of pictures.

Who will be there? We’re expecting over 100 family and friends. To help you get to know people better, we’re posting introductions on the site. Look for more of these soon!

… and always feel free to leave comments!