For those of you with dietary needs/preferences
Hey everyone,
You know, from an organizing and planning perspective, all of us who work behind the scenes learn something useful each time there is a Cathe Road Trip. At the 2005 and 2007 Road Trips we found we had Trippers attending who practiced a very wide range of dietary lifestyles, whether because of allergies, religious principles, delicate digestive systems or simple personal choice. I've been surprised by the sheer variety of dietary restrictions our Trippers manage in their everyday lives, and I can tell you that learning about your dietary practices has been fascinating for all of us worker bees.
Cathe, of course, as you would imagine, absolutely wants to be as responsive to each of her guests' needs as she can reasonably be. So we have helped her look at lots of food options. She remains very mindful of this
every year when we do food planning.
What we've discovered is this, folks: the best, most do-able and practicable, most widely-accommodating, most makes-the-most-people-happy solution to our Trippers' food issues is for us to focus on providing fresh fruit, salads, protein bars, yogurt and other healthy snacks throughout the weekend, and ample vegetarian options at the meals.
For example, at last year's "cookout" lunch we provided Boca/veggie burgers as well as beef burgers and we had an array of salads and fruits on the lunch buffet, and we also arranged for the Saturday night dinner choices to include a meat-free pasta dish and a fish. Our feedback from the post-RT surveys has reassured us that 99+% of our 2005 and 2007 attendees felt that they ate quite well and were comfortably within their dietary needs or preferences.
This year we're doing our Saturday meals a little differently -- we're eating lunch out at a Japanese restaurant instead of eating "in" at the gym, and we're eating "in" at the gym with a fantastic buffet instead of going out on Saturday night. But the food game plan is the same: We are focusing on providing constantly-available and plentiful food, healthy food, CLEAN food (well, for the most part ;-)) and plenty of vegetarian options.
All of us are very hopeful and pretty confident that, whatever your dietary needs, you won't go away from the Road Trip feeling hungry. ;-)
That being said, if you feel that your dietary needs are so specific that the Road Trip planned foods make you uncertain or insecure, we recommend that you bring along foods that you're comfortable with and that will reassure you. If you plan to do that and you have questions about transporting or storing foods, please e-mail one of the Coordinators and we'll see if there's anything we can do to help.
For those of you who are vegan, the weakest link in your weekend food chain is definitely the Sunday Brunch, as we are restricted by what's on a very typical diner menu containing many foods that are cooked in (or just ARE) animal products. We are very aware of that, but we are also aware that the Sunday morning trip to the Diner is an overwhelmingly, GIGANTICALLY popular farewell event
exactly as-is. So we have left it on the schedule, and we would appreciate your understanding that and kinda trying to roll with it a bit. The Diner's menu, of course, contains cereals, bagels and other breads, salads and fresh fruit. If you want more information to aid in your meal planning, we recommend that you directly contact the Five Points Diner to inquire about the availability of foods that you can eat. Their phone number is: 1-856-228-5166.
I hope this answers your food-related questions and concerns, folks. Feel free to post again or PM me, Debbie or Lorrayne if you have any others.
http://bestsmileys.com/exercising/6.gif Kathy S.
http://planetsmilies.net/sport-smiley-5536.gif
