Dumpster Danish

There are a lot of things I could write about training weekend down at Lake San Antonio. But I think most of the training related commentary has already been said. We all know (or are tired of hearing about) the hills, the heat, the gritty camping, the mildewy showers.

The thing that made this year's training weekend unique, by far, was an incredible culinary discovery. One that will almost certainly be remembered for it's boldness and of course, flavor.

We were up at the crack of dawn on Saturday, eating a quick breakfast of bananas, bagels, coffee, and assorted pastries (please note foreshadowing) as the sun rose. At around 7am, we headed down to the lake for a chilly swim--albeit, bathwater compared to the Bay--and then onto our bikes to cover the bike course; both olympic and half-irnonman distances respectively.

We trickled back to camp at around 1pm and had the rest of the afternoon to hang out in the sun, grazing on chips, cookies, and other tasty treats and chatting about whatever it is that people talk about when camping. Most of the topics revolved around the brutal long course and urination (most likely, the topic of a future blog entry).

Susan, being the good-natured and exceptionally organized mentor that she is, did a quick cleanup before we headed down to the pasta dinner. It wasn't until we returned to camp hours later with a yearning for something sweet, that we discovered she had disposed of an almost full tray of danish. After admonishing Susan about the thoughtless act of waste disposal, and then her rebuttal: they were sitting in the sun all day and they had cheese on them. "Cheese"? Really? In theory yes, but let's be honest, the stuff on that danish is as close to cheese as HD TV is to actual life experience, so the belief was that the danish was un-spoiled and sitting unlawfully in the dumpster.

A few members of our camp found this to be deplorable and decided to do something about it. They put on their headlamps and headed over to the dumpster. Of course, I went with them, as a good reporter would have a nose for news. They rummaged through a few bags before finding the glisten of the aluminum foil and inside, the helpless danish. I must say, it was a joyous moment. We were gleeful as we walked back to camp with the tray of danish and shared a few ideas about how to best consume the pastry.

In true innovative fashion, someone had the brilliant idea of putting the danish on the grill. Not only would it remove any lingering dumpster aromas, but a heated pastry is always better than one that is room temperature. This is just a law of the universe. I have to admit, I took a small morsel of the danish, but couldn't bring myself to eat the whole thing. The truth is, Susan was right. Those things had been in the sun all day and then in the trash. They were not fit for consumption and I was sure that the guys were going to realize this after it was too late. Turns out, I was wrong. They thoroughly enjoyed the danish, and they made it through the night, living to tell the tale of the legendary Dumpster Danish.