A Day in the Life at Camp Pasta

by Breanne Bartok

The day started off with enough clouds and autumn chill that I wondered how the kids would fare walking around town on their field trip. 

But by the time we had gathered outside The Table and entered into its cocoon of warmth, those worries were dashed. They were all so excited for the day’s events; surely a little rain couldn’t dampen their excitement! 

At The Table, we rotated in groups, with some of us starting off drawing advertisements for our favorite fruits and vegetables (with some very clever slogans, and more than a handful of very artistic drawings!) The other half went into the kitchen to help make and package pasta for our lunch with our grownups on Thursday. Campers got to slice off the noodles oozing out of the pasta-making machine, lay them on the counter, dust them with flour, and then begin weighing them out to exactly 16.0 ounces. We all took turns at these stations, while some others made stickers to date the noodles, others wrapped the carefully-measured pasta in paper and stuck both the date stickers and The Table stickers on the packages. We had made our very own processed food! 

After switching so that every camper got a turn at every station, we walked to nearby Whatcom Middle School to take turns harvesting fresh cherry and grape tomatoes in the hoop house and preparing flatbread and beet hummus in the kitchen. Several campers were wary of a hot pink hummus, but like the Adventurous Eaters we all strive to be at Common Threads, they all gave it a shot!

After lunch, we hopped on the bus down to Fairhaven for a lesson at Drizzle, listening to owners Ross and Dana explain what made good dressings. After letting us sample different kinds of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, they were amazingly generous enough to give each camper a small bottle with which to pick any oil or vinegar in the shop and take some home! Given all the yummy varieties Drizzle offers, it was definitely a hard choice for some. 

Finally, we ended our day at the Fairhaven Farmer’s Market, analyzing the price of local vegetables so we would have an idea of how to price our own produce the next day at our Farm Stand. From playing in the rain to asking farmers questions, from buying berries to trading one yummy carrot for a CD from one of the performers, the campers definitely had fun – rain and all!