Best Camp for a Chef?

[Impatience]

As a chef, cooking is both my art and my gift to fellow burners.

Which camps are best known for their cooking?

[lemur]

your own!!!

[lemur]

some of the food related camps like to play hide and seek with the health dept.. these ones dont really advertise so much. might not be easy to get in touch with them..

some of the more out in the open food camps with fancy food tend towards some interesting and sometimes weird VIP-like kind of arrangements..stuff like participants ending up with a 'coupon' or something of the sort that lets them invite one other person... among other types of things like only serving people working on the art.. or whatever other ways they can use to control who shows up....these types of high end dealies tend to be open for short periods of time with limited public access in general (i guess its expensive to do so they need to limit who can take part.. its their choice!)

from my experience most of the food related camps serving stuff to the masses arent so fancy. nothing that would take a 'chef', really... (pancake camps, grilled cheese camps, fried bologna, bacon camps, ..easy and simple stuff)

as i see it the most opportunity a chef has out there is to cook for the camp you camp with.. not to gift the public.. plenty of camps out there eat awesome food.. its not for the public.. just folks in the camp itself (some camps are huge)

so... i would guess that if you want to 'gift' your skill.. odds are youre more likely to do more 'chef' like things, as in cooking more often, for more people..with more awesome food and with people who appreciate you more because youre a campmate.. by cooking for a camp youre camping with rather than for one that gifts stuff to the public.


cuz like.. even those camps that may be gifting fancy food to the public have to eat themselves, too, and they are far more likely to be prepared to have stuff for their own meals more-so than food to just give away.


i camp with a camp that has ranged from 100 to 225 people over the years, we dont gift food to the public.. but we sure as heck have had some super high class meals, expensive stuff, fancy stuff.. chef type stuff!! ..in my mind, theres far more of these types of things than there are people just giving it away to the public.

[Savannah]

so... i would guess that if you want to 'gift' your skill.. odds are youre more likely to do more 'chef' like things, as in cooking more often, for more people..with more awesome food and with people who appreciate you more because youre a campmate.. by cooking for a camp youre camping with rather than for one that gifts stuff to the public.

I like this piece of advice in particular. Hook up with a cooking camp if you want, but if you don't find one you like, being One-Who-Cooks (at a whim, when you can) for a camp with another aim--or no aim in particular--makes a person (and the day itself) memorable. I remember so fondly the hot nutella sandwiches made in a press--& the pasta--of one campmate, the bacon & biscuits and the pizza given to me by another . . . the indian spinach and cheese over rice given to me during a rainstorm . . . the sausage in a hoagie roll from the neighbors . . . the fresh caught whole salmon, grilled. Best salmon of my life. These were all spontaneous surprises, shared by friends with a handful of people. I'll never forget those meals. Did I mention these did not occur in a cooking camp? Cause they didn't.

I also liked the grilled cheese sandwiches--which were actually part of an organized effort. Simple, mass-produced, delicious, made with love.

[Token]

There's a "feed the artists" camp thing going on the past few years but no guarantee they will pull it off this year.

Keep an eye out for them. They will fundraise soon here, kickstarter and the likes.

[Impatience]

some of the more out in the open food camps with fancy food tend towards some interesting and sometimes weird VIP-like kind of arrangements..stuff like participants ending up with a 'coupon' or something of the sort that lets them invite one other person... among other types of things like only serving people working on the art.. or whatever other ways they can use to control who shows up....these types of high end dealies tend to be open for short periods of time with limited public access in general (i guess its expensive to do so they need to limit who can take part.. its their choice!)

Great idea! I've heard about groups like this that host special events for artists and/or volunteers.

I'll definitely keep my eyes open for them.

[wraith]

I believe the Golden Cafe folks are also looking for chefs as well, so you might want to drop them a line. I'm a baker, myself.

[gyre]

I disagree about the simple food thing.

There are plenty of things a chef can do with simple food to make it amazing.

[Galaxo Magic]

Feed The Artists - Awesome what these folks do. Don't know if they are going to be there this year. It would be a shame if they weren't.

Golden Cafe - Also folks I know. Great folks, haven't heard they need a chef.

Awesome food is wonderful out on the playa but after a hard days work, even a grilled cheese sandwich tastes good.

I hope you find someone special to camp!

MORE BACON

[Impatience]

There are plenty of things a chef can do with simple food to make it amazing.

I agree!

There is a lot of zen in a perfectly fried egg, a lovingly prepared soup or a well-balanced grilled cheese.

[golgotha-a-go-go]

Feed the Artists will most definitely be at Burning Man this year as we have been since 2007.

Here's a little info on us and much more at: http://www.feedtheartists.net/


Feed the Artists (aka FtA) is a communal art grant that builds community through food gifting. We facilitate offers of gratitude and support to hard-working artist (and other) crews by encouraging theme camps and other groups to offer them the simple gift of a nourishing, heartfelt meal. The program has literally fed thousands of artists since 2007, inspiring radical collaboration amongst diverse groups, and creating many lifelong friendships in the process.

Vision

Our Vision is to create a Communal Art Grant through food; An opportunity for the Burning Man community, as represented by its theme camps, to support the artists who make Burning Man so special, by granting them the gift of nourishment, camaraderie, support, and appreciation

Our primary objectives are:

To support BM’s artists
To create healthy and meaningful interactions between artists and theme camps and promote bonding, collaboration and the sharing of resources.
To elevate the role of food on the playa to an art form.
And to do it all in a way that it becomes a self-sustaining, self-perpetuating tradition at BM, then the regionals, and then beyond.

Check us out and stay tuned for our Kickstarter.

FtA