Ekone’s Food

Ekone’s food is famous! 

Our from-scratch home cooking is a highlight of every day at the ranch. And the Yummy Tummy Cafe, our beloved kitchen and dining hall, is a welcoming, cozy, vibrant hub of community.

The menu at the Yummy Tummy Café is ever-changing with the seasons, with the inspiration of our talented chefs, and with the needs of each program. All our meals are made from scratch, using as many local ingredients and produce from our own garden as possible.

Nearly all of our meals are vegetarian, rich in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. We do serve meat approximately once a week, sometimes as a celebratory dinner on the final night of a program.

Please don’t threaten your kids with this, but many, many children have learned to love vegetables and try new foods at the Yummy Tummy Cafe!

(Yes, we have a cookbook, and it’s for sale in the Ekone Store in the corner of the kitchen.)

Dietary Restrictions

With advance notice we can accommodate most dietary restrictions, including vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free, and most allergies, with a few exceptions: 

• We cannot fully accommodate for Celiac disease due to the likelihood or corss-contamination in our non-GF kitchen. If someone in your program has Celiac disease, please have them contact us directly. 

• We are unable to fully accommodate a “paleo” diet, and suggest that those on a paleo diet or needing a lot of animal protein bring some of their own ready-to-eat snack and paleo proteins or pre-cooked meal additions to supplement Ekone meals.

• Any anaphylactic allergies must be discussed in advance. We can probably accommodate them but want to be sure!

• ARFID or other extreme pickiness, aversions, or disorders must be discussed in advance. We may ask you to bring or send supplemental food. 

Special Requests

If your program has needs or requests that are different from our typical meal plan (for instance, if you’d like meat at every meal), let’s discuss. It’s possible we can accommodate you, at additional expense. 

Common Menus

(Which we routinely deviate from!)

Coffee & Tea

• Coffee, and tea (caffeinated & herbal) are offered for adults at every breakfast, generally starting around 7:30am, along with both cow milk or half-and-half, and a non-dairy beverage to be used in coffee or tea.

• There is a kettle available for adult participants to make tea or coffee as needed anytime of day or night.

Breakfasts

• Oatmeal and all the fixings, and hard-boiled eggs

• Scrambled eggs and potatoes

• Pancakes and scrambled eggs

• French toast

• Poached eggs and polenta and greens

• Frittata and toast or potatoes

• Bagel and cream cheese bar including veggies, with hard-boiled eggs

• Fruit, yogurt, and homemade GF granola are served at every breakfast

Lunches and Dinners

• Burrito/taco bar, with homemade salsa in season

• Pasta and red sauce, sautéed veggies, salad, bread

• Veggie stir fry with tofu on the side, rice, and sauces

• Veggie curry with tofu on the side, rice, yogurt, toppings

• Baked potato bar with broccoli, sour cream, baked beans and other toppings

• All the salads bar: pasta salad, 3-bean salad, green salad, quinoa salad

• Treatloaf; vegetarian meatloaf, served with with veggies, mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy

• Homemade pizza with a variety of toppings

• Lasagna with homemade egg noodles

• A variety of casseroles, both noodle and rice-based

• Homemade veggie burgers (soy-free), with baked beans and home fries

• Veggie sloppy joes (soy-based), roast vegetables

• Sandwich bar: egg salad, tuna salad, veggies, cheese, etc

• Falafel bar

• Various legume-based or potato-based soups, with salad and cornbread. Most popular soups include: 

• Split-pea

• Minestrone

• Chili

• Squash with carrot and ginger

• Miso

• Borsht

• Salmon chowder

• Fresh corn chowder

• Mixed veggie chowder

• Chili blanco

• Chicken noodle or chicken and rice

• Generally, we serve meat once per week or per program longer than 4 days, as the final celebratory dinner for that camp or program. Depending on season and availability, these dinners could be wild-caught salmon, local beef burgers, local chicken, sustainably raised turkey, or local pork.

Dessert

We don’t serve dessert on a daily basis, but do occasionally offer dessert as a special treat! Sometimes for the last evening of a program, or for a birthday or other celebration the group is planning as part of their program. Please let our Program Director know if your group is planning a special celebration time as part of your program.

Snacks

For children’s programs, we generally provide a simple and wholesome snack between meals; snacks usually consist of some combination of fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts and seeds, crackers, and cheese. Some groups also choose to bring a special treat to share around an evening campfire, or as an evening snack if they know their group will want/need a snack before bed. We generally don’t provide between-meal snacks for adult programs, knowing that adults are more able to feed themselves adequately at mealtimes and/or able to bring their own snacks if desired.

Some philosophy

We love good food and sharing meals in community! We appreciate mealtimes as a time for connection and celebration. We respect the food and the chefs with gratitude and by making our best effort to finish all the food we take; we don’t offer seconds until firsts have been finished. We do our best to balance our strongly-held food ethics with the economic and practical realities of feeding thousands of people every year. We think it’s okay to get a bit hungry between meals, and that spending days outside working and playing hard makes the food taste better. And we know that love is the most important spice, so we cook all our meals with love and you can taste it.