HOW TO FEED A SKI TEAM
Hi There!
In the last few posts I have been telling you all about our recent adventures in Lake Tahoe as we follow our son, Austin, on the ski race trail.
The team rents a house in each ski resort they visit, and are accompanied by a legion of coaches and parent chaperones.
Parents are required to volunteer in any number of capacities. They can stand on the cold race slopes all day repairing the course after each skier comes down.
They can sit in a tent at computers, monitoring the times of each racer.
They can stand on a snowy slope and record race times as they are announced.
Or, like my husband often does, they can sit on the race course “gate judging”, which is to insure that every racer properly enters and clears the gates.
However, if you are like me, you avoid the cold racecourse, in favor of a hot stove, and volunteer to cook for the team. As you might imagine, these young athletes get mighty hungry, and when they are traveling with their team, need to be well fed. Skiing is an expensive sport, made more expensive by the necessity for travel. The athletes spend their days on the slopes training and racing, and when they finally return to the team house they are hungry. So that makes for a lot of hungry mouths to feed. There are the hungry coaches and bus drivers who play cards waiting to be fed.
And there are the hungry athletes who wait at the table……
while others, like my son, who licks his lips in anticipation of dinner. Still others model their pajamas waiting for me to feed them.
So, in case you are interested, I thought I’d show you how to feed a ski team. First, it involves a lot of advance planning, list making and shopping. The end result is a garage full of tables piled high with food and drinks.
And a garage refrigerator packed full of everything to prepare breakfasts, lunches, dinners, slopeside snacks and hot chocolate with whip cream for an after dinner nightcap.
The freezer is stuffed with homemade lasagne and macaroni and cheese, prepared in advance so it can be heated up in the team’s rental house.
What I don’t prepare in advance, I prepare in my own rental house and transport it over to the race house. That is because you can imagine the condition of a kitchen where 20 athletes are living. On this trip, I decided to prepare a Mexican feast for the team, consisting of everything they would need to make self-serve tacos, burritos and nachos.
It was nothing fancy, as you can see. I fried 100 corn tortillas, prepared meat, refried beans, Mexican rice and guacamole.
In the end, their bellies were full and all was well with The Rim of The World High School Shred Team.
And all was well with me too when I learned that another mom was going to feed them spaghetti the following night.
That meant Brad and I could go out to dinner, at Stella; Lake Tahoe’s finest restaurant. Stay tuned for my next post where I’ll share with you one of my most memorable dining experiences.
Ciao for now!
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Thank you for visiting!
Celia
