Fatal Feast At Camp

FATAL FEAST AT CAMP

“Summer job of a lifetime, my ass,” I thought.

This was soul-sucking from the first minute. With sweat stinging my eyes, I hacked onions in a kitchen that felt like a furnace every single day the air went dead—a relentless, choking cycle I couldn’t escape.

It was the middle of July, sticky and suffocating. My hands ached as I chopped onions again because the menu was, yet again, tossed aside by the North Shore diva. Every new menu item is her whim, every cut of my knife another hour of misery for her so-called ‘upscale’ adult camp.

Carter got me this job—my so-called ex, though, "not ex enough" still stung. Fresh out of culinary school, I was hungry for challenges and desperate to pad my resume, hoping that new skills might set me apart—and maybe distract me from Carter.

I wondered where Carter was. He always vanished when the diva changed something. He called it a cook’s job at a summer camp. I pictured grilling burgers, hot dogs, maybe s’mores before bed; easy. Carter just giggled.

Now, I realized why. It was a summer camp, alright. A summer camp for adults; six adults to be exact. Three couples, including Carter and his new flavor-of-the-month, Morgan Kirkwood of the Lake Forest Kirkwood’s, the North Shore elite, completed all the invitees. I took it because I had a couple of interviews with upscale restaurants: one at a Chicago Steakhouse on North Dearborn and the other at an Evanston Diner near Northwestern University. This would tick another box on my resume.

Ms. Kirkwood was the head-bitch-in-charge, and she made it her mission to grind me down. There was nothing funny about dogs and burgers—she demanded a James Beard menu on a line cook’s salary. "Demanding" didn’t even scratch the surface. She prowled the kitchen, slashing menus I’d slaved to create at her request.

Every time she did this, I would complain. Then the air conditioning went out—ninety outside, a hundred in the kitchen with no air. I got the hint and just went with the menu changes.

It was during one of these ‘menu change, temperature changes’ that I stepped out of the kitchen to cool off. Hard to believe that 90 degrees and humidity were actually cooling compared to the kitchen when that air was out.

Today, they were out on a nature walk, whatever that meant. It was the last day of the “magical mystery camp.” I couldn’t be happier.

Chopping onions and arugula for today’s entrée, I fumed. Burgers and dogs were so far from anything she offered, you’d need a Sherpa to find them.

Morgan wanted everything done to the standards of a five-star Michelin restaurant or a James Beard Award winner. She expected me, Kerry Ijams, head chef, to execute her vision perfectly. Even after graduating from culinary school at the top of my class, I still had to look up things she insisted on adding to the menu. It felt deliberate—like she was intentionally making things difficult to frustrate me or to embarrass me in front of my ex, soon to be deceased.

Back in the kitchen, sweat ran down my face as Morgan and Carter waltzed in with a basket of greens and smug grins.

“Oh, dear,” Morgan said. “It’s stifling in here.”

“Air conditioning is out. Again.”

“Oh, dear. Carter, please be an angel and look into it. We don’t want our chef suffering before our last meal here, now do we?”

“Of course not.”

With that, they both shared a smirk. Morgan handed over the basket to Kerry, smiling even more.

“Here, dear, we got permission to harvest fresh veggies from our neighbor’s garden. Scrumptious, don’t you think?”

“But,” I protested. “Meal’s prepared and ready to go.”

“Fresh veggies, though, what could be better? Just alter a few things. I’ll leave it in your professional hands. Now, we’ll get out of your way so you can work your magic.”

Once they left, I waited until they were out of earshot and screamed, “FUCK!”

Sorting through the basket of "scrumptious" produce, I spotted mushrooms. Examining them, I found brittle gills and oddly tinted flesh. Russula. Poisonous.

What a moron, I thought.

Without hesitation, I tossed them in the garbage. Before starting her menu renovations, I stepped outside for a walk to cool off.

Obviously, Carter couldn’t fix the air or didn’t bother trying. Approaching the lake, the voices clawed through the undergrowth. Close enough, I heard the three couples talking and laughing—cutting laughter, sharp with ridicule—catching snatches like ‘her cooking is mediocre at best’ and ‘maybe she has a future flipping burgers or super-sizing something.’

That drew a ripple of laughter, even from Carter. I pushed the bushes aside to peek. What I saw shocked me. The six were naked, paired off with someone besides whom they came with. Carter got me this job not just to humiliate me, but to cater an orgy—his orgy with North Shore Barbie.

Back in the kitchen, I seethed—not at them, but at myself for slipping. Rage twisted in my gut, the reminder of why I left him erupting inside me, hot and blinding.

Looking at the menu, an idea formed. Lamb chops with balsamic reduction were planned. I kept the salad—Morgan wouldn’t notice. I fished the Russula from the trash and put two pots on the stove.

I combined dried rosemary, basil, thyme, mixed shallots, chicken broth, and balsamic vinegar in both pots. But in one pot, I finely chopped the Russula and added it to the simmering pot. Afterward, the chops were grilled on the outside gas grill.

I prepared six plates, each with a grilled lamb chop and clear grill marks. I added reduction sauce from pots one to four to the four plates and Russula sauce to the two, then garnished all with parsley and thinly sliced grilled asparagus.

But before I brought out the meal, I emptied the Russula pot, thoroughly cleaned it, and hid it away.

Morgan insisted on chilled glasses of wine with each curse; this afternoon, it was the Cabernet Sauvignon. At three hundred dollars a bottle, it would be a fine last meal for Morgan and Carter. I was very happy I insisted on payment up front. In the kitchen, I toasted myself with a glass of the Cabernet for a job well done.