Food Friday: Fueling the Twinados’ First Week of Summer (Basketball Camp!)

This week was K & O’s annual “Heaven on Earth Week” (their own title for Lehigh Basketball Camp). This was their third year of doing this camp, and it is truly one of the best weeks of their year. It is right up there — NO JOKE — with Christmas week and their birthday week. I am not even kidding.

100 basketball-loving-boys, a slew of idols coaches, a TON of sweat, and nothing-but-pure-basketball 8:30-3:30 Monday-Friday. This is Kyle and Owen’s idea of heaven. On Tuesday Kyle announced: “Instead of school all year and basketball camp for one week, I wish that it was basketball camp all year, and school for one week.”

I, however, don’t think I could handle that. I simply could not possibly handle the food production that would require.

As this past week progressed, I found myself shocked and awed by the sheer consumption of food they had going on. And believe me, at this point it takes a LOT to shock and awe me where my boys’ food consumption is concerned. I have blogged often about this subject over the years– the sheer volume of food these two put down. But during the week of basketball camp Heaven on Earth their food consumption jumps to a whole new level. (They are hustle hustle hustle non-stop on the court — in fact, Owen won the “Mr. Hustle” award this year for the second year in a row; can you just imagine how many calories they are burning each and every hour of this week?)

It takes a lot to fuel these basketball-loving twinados. It occurred to me two days ago that I should be somehow recording this for posterity sake. In the past two days I’ve tried to document their food intake. Here, for the sake of preserving history, are my notes from the past two days of food production:

TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF: Fueling the Twinados for Basketball Camp Week

note: I signed them up for the camp’s Gatorade program– that includes all-you-can-drink-Gatorade all day long. This year I also signed them up for pizza lunch. You can buy as much or as little pizza as you want your kids to have (pizza by the slice). I signed them up for three slices each, each day. So, they drank Gatorade all day and ate 3 slices each for lunch.

Day #1:

Breakfast: two eggs over easy, 3 slices thick-cut bacon, a pile of blueberries, OJ. Owen also has a Boost Plus, in addition to his breakfast, every morning because he needs the extra protein, calories, and fat.

After-Camp Snack: in addition to what you see below, they each had a very large glass of milk and a banana.

Dinner: grilled teriyaki salmon, grilled zucchini, watermelon, and penne with spinach and white beans. For the record: Owen ate 4 pieces of salmon that night. FYI: that is over a pound of salmon (that is a lot of salmon; it kinda makes my stomach turn just thinking about eating that much salmon in one sitting).

Late Night Snacks: Kyle ate a bowl of black raspberry ice cream that night. Owen ate two (yes two!) mint chocolate chip Klondike bars, then had to get out of bed later claiming that he couldn’t fall asleep because he was “so hungry.” He proceeded to eat three (yes three!) bowls of his favorite cereal (Kashi Heart to Heart Warm Cinnamon Oat cereal).

Day #2:

Breakfast: homemade waffles (note: they each ate two of these), smoothies.

That particular morning their smoothies = high protein plain greek yogurt, a handful of fresh kale, a handful of fresh spinach, 1 whole apple, 1 whole banana, a few chunks of frozen pineapple, mango puree (as amazing as it is, even to me, these guys don’t care at all that the smoothie is bright green, with a very thick texture, with no added sweetener whatsoever. They just slurp it right on down without even batting an eye.

After-Camp Snack: a huge pile of very sharp cheddar cheese, sliced salami, and grapes. In addition to what you see below, they each had a large glass of milk and a Nutrigrain cereal bar.

Dinner: grilled steak, sautéed mushrooms, mashed potatoes, steamed green beans (we also had grilled asparagus that night, and although Meera loves it, K & O have always had the gag reflex from asparagus so I don’t make them eat it). Note: after eating everything you see below, Owen came in after dinner claiming he wanted “more steak.” He proceeded to eat another half a steak before getting ready for bed.

Late Night Snacks: Kyle ate a bowl of black raspberry ice cream; Owen ate a chocolate dipped, nut-covered Drumstick ice cream cone.

– – –

This morning, after we dropped off the boys at basketball camp, Meera and I made a grocery store run to re-stock. She saw this box of glazed donut holes near the check-out line, and wanted to get it for her brothers as a treat for the end of basketball camp week. This afternoon she presented it to them. They were beyond thrilled. I gave them each a huge glass of milk to go along with it. 15 minutes later I returned to find the box completely empty. Whattha?!?!

Here they are, watching a movie, this afternoon in their delirious post-donut-hole, exhausted post-basketball-camp-week state:

I am delirious and exhausted too. This food production gig is heavy-duty. Braydon is taking me out to dinner tonight so I can sip a cold glass of white wine and eat something delicious that someone else made.

Oh, and today is the 21st — Happy First Day of Summer!!! (And Happy 44th Anniversary to MorMor and MorFar!!!)