What would camp be without a “cookout” – the quintessential American experience?

Each week at Camp Runoia, it’s cookout for Saturday supper! Dogs, burgs, veggie burgers, sometimes a surprise salmon or kebob accompanied by the requisite salad bar with fruit salad, potato salad and pasta salad and usually chips and pickles. Topped off with ketchup, mustard and nowadays, hot sauce makes for a fun outdoor meal.

One of our favorite parts about cookout is that it’s an outdoor picnic style meal which means after you get your plate of food, you circle up with cabin mates and other friends on the kickball field lawn and enjoy your meal. Perhaps you get up to catch a Frisbee or to braid someone’s hair, some girls like to bring their book and just chill as the sun dips down behind the tennis courts and the Den in the western sky. Often a pick up game of basketball or tag, cartwheels and playing with the youngest of the staff children is part of the scene.

Cookouts have been a Runoia weekend tradition since the 1960s when the Cobbs took the reins and Betty Cobb organized the camp menus. We love tradition and we love to carry it forward. Cookouts are a mainstay at Runoia and they are here to stay!

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend, thanks to all the United States troops who have served and protected our country  – we will remember you in celebration of Memorial Day and fire up our grills!  To all Runoia readers: whether you are grilling burgers or portabella caps – enjoy your cookout!