Camp Cookies

by Lennox Ó'Súilleabháin

To say Camp Emerald Bay was beautiful would be an understatement. Idyllic and pristine, isolated in its own bay on the remote Santa Catalina Island, twenty-two miles off the coast of Southern California. The bay for which it was named clear and blue, beautiful both above and below the waves. A colorful array of sea life in its rocky waters. The camp running long into the rivets of the valleys that fed out to the ocean. Far from the orange glow of the Los Angeles sprawl, at night the Camp rested under a vast star cover. It was a place to explore, a place to relax, a place to make lifelong summer memories. This, however, is not about the camp itself. It is about its food.

To say the food was good at Emerald Bay would be far too generous. Too milky scrambled eggs with sausages more carbon than sausage for breakfast. Frozen corndogs or wet sloppy joes for lunch. Dry chicken and over cooked steak with a side of bland mash potatoes for dinner. The Sysco food logo prominent on all the packaging going in and out of the kitchen. Palette forbid one was a vegetarian or a vegan for the options in that were as limited as they were flavorful. One did not attend the camp for the cuisine, and it was only the long Summer days in the sun that made it a reasonable thing to scarf down.

To say I am a bit of a picky eater would be an understatement as well. I’ve gotten better in years, but during my times at Emerald Bay I was far worse. It does not take a refined palette to recognize cheap and easily produced food. Personally, I have experience working in a cafeteria where food needs to produced cheaply, in mass, and as fast as possible. It is not glamorous, and noble are the many line cooks who put as much care as possible in the thankless task. I do not lament or curse the food choices of Emerald Bay, for it was not the reason I went so many times.

There was one food stuff that I always looked forward to each time I boarded the catamaran in Long Beach harbor. The general store of the camp sold many things- patches, candy, snacks, tools. Many would wait out all lunch break for the signature “Slush Puppies”, a kind of Slurpee. For me the real treasure was the massive fresh baked cookies they sold for a $1.75. Everyday I’d try to get one or two, regardless of time. They were big and they were melty, coming apart with the lightest of touches, the chocolate melting perfectly in your mouth and all over your hands. It was just Toll House brand cookie dough, but the way they were baked up and served made all the difference at the camp. The hot lamp under which they sat kept them eternally at the perfect state of melt, as though they were freshly baked regardless if it was 10am or 6pm. I must admit I was a bit of a fiend when it came to these cookies, and blew threw what little money I was given by my parents for the camp on them. When they were not in stock it would throw off my day’s rhythm. Kayaking, leather-working, or bicycling was not the same without the warm comfort of a Camp Emerald Bay store cookie.

To this day I measure a cookies quality by the ones I had all those years ago. Nostalgia may cloud most of the taste, I am sure since I have had better cookies, but it still holds a special place in my taste-buds and heart.