Come 'n Get It

Someone once said (maybe my Mom) that when you are camping, putting up with the elements, lack of hygiene, and missing your bed and the comforts of home, the food had better be good. I agree.

Troy and I have always enjoyed camping and I'm glad to say that our cuisine has definitely improved over the years. I remember when we were first married, cooking hot dogs and foil dinners in an actual campfire - I don't think those are even allowed in Utah anymore. The fires, that is. Foil dinners and hot dogs are alive and well in scout camps across the state.

I had some decent foil dinners on the menu. My main goal, of course, was to eliminate all washing of dishes. I used small, disposable foil pans and assembled stews and casseroles (lots of gravy) and then covered them with tin foil on the top. My 99 cent dutch oven. They cooked up great and cleaned up even better. Wasteful? You better believe it. We went through stacks of paper plates and bowls, boxes of utensils, and whole rolls of tin foil. But I never washed a single thing.

The next phase of camp cooking started when we got our trailer that has a stove, oven and running hot water. I remember one summer getting all Betty Crockerish and making cakes and corn breads to go with whatever I had simmering in the crock pot. I'd throw a roast in there to cook all day while we went out hiking or something, and when we'd come back, the trailer would smell so good. Our dog, Jeffrey, always stayed in the trailer, smelling the food cook and we wondered if we'd ever come back to an empty crock pot and a guilty-looking dog. He never got into it, but he did drool some. Okay, a lot.

What, you say, there's a dog? And she's never mentioned him? Well, I'm sure I will write about Jeffrey someday, but I can't just now. He died a few months ago and honestly, I can hardly type his name without crying my eyes out. So no Jeffrey stories for now.

Anyway (dabbing my eyes), we're changing the way we cook again. Last Christmas, my parents gave us a bunch of Camp Chef gear - a propane stove, grill box, griddle, and then for Troy's birthday, he received a couple Dutch Ovens and some cast iron cookware. Now we're talkin'!

We've been pouring over the cookbooks and imagining the fabulous meals we're going to crank out by the side of our trailer. It's been a fun thing to do together. Irene and her fire restriction put a damper on some of our meal plans, but we managed to get a little use out of one dutch oven before she caught us.

We made rolls! Imagine that - hot buttery rolls! We're first-time Dutch Oven users, so it was a little stressful when the dough rose so high that it lifted the lid off the bottom. Troy moved the whole oven at one point, and the lid that was balancing on top of the dough slid right off and fell to the ground, scattering coals everywhere. It was a panicky moment, but he put the coals back on the lid and the lid back on the dough. When it started smelling done, he lifted the lid and saw all the little pieces of grass that had baked into the top of the rolls. Nothing that couldn't be picked out though, and we called it a success when every last one was eaten.

The next morning we discovered that our leftover bread dough had tripled itself in the night. I'm talking biblical proportions - a bag of dough that should only feed us for one meal, now growing and able to feed many people for many meals. Freaky, I know, and there's really only one way to celebrate the miracle of the dough.

Scones.

Lots and lots of scones.

Kristine had brought along some homemade strawberry butter and maple pecan butter that truly added to the celebration. Yum!

So that's about all the fancy cookin' that we did. Kristine's husband, Mike cooked some yummy things for everyone too. We enjoyed...

Hash browns and all manner of sausages,

eggs,

and pancakes.

Thanks, Troy and Mike. The food was delicious!

When you go camping, what do you like to eat and how do you cook it?

Mrs. Kravitz

Our neighbor up at the lake became blog-worthy the minute that we met her.
Say hello to Irene.

She must have seen us pull in and immediately jumped from her trailer to watch Troy maneuver into our spot. She was waving her arms and hollerin' at him, giving advice and directing poor Troy as to how he ought to pull the trailer into our spot. This is like telling Martha Stewart how to fold towels. Troy's a good guy; he thanked her for all her help, and parked just fine.

Later that evening, I was organizing inside the trailer (my favorite thing!) and handed Troy a bunch of plastic bags to place between some of his new cast iron cookware that we were storing in totes underneath the trailer. I heard a screen door slam.

"Troy! Troy!" Irene was running towards us, arms waving again.

"Is that bread you just put into that container?"

Good golly, was she watching us with binoculars?

"No, it's just plastic bags."

"Well, okay. I just had to make sure. You can't be storing food outside - we've had a badger and skunks. Big problem with the skunks."

After Irene was satisfied that the skunks would have have no reason to congregate nearby, she headed back to her own place. It was a giant motor home that she drove all by herself, seeing as her husband had died more than a decade ago, and as she put it, "he died, I didn't".

She also told us the tale of rolling her previous trailer and how Firestone Tires had bought her current motor home for her. She's had several back surgeries. She didn't show us the scars, though I'm sure she would of if I had asked.

Irene was missing an inch off of her middle finger on her right hand. She was out mowing her lawn a few years back and felt something hit her from behind. She fell into her mower, and since she had tied it so it wouldn't turn off, (I don't know why, she blamed the back surgeries) it chopped her finger off. She drove herself to the emergency room.

The doctors found a shoe print on the back of her shirt. Apparently, some punk kid was wanting to join a gang and he had to hurt someone to prove himself. The first little old lady that he pushed was fine, but Irene was his ticket into the gang of his choice, after he served his jail time, of course.

Irene got all up in our business one more time before we left. Seems there was a fire restriction in the city that included lighting charcoal to cook on the dutch ovens. We weren't aware of the restriction, and had been lighting our charcoal willy-nilly the day before. It also rained pretty much the entire time we were there. But Irene takes her job as campground watcher pretty seriously, and when she saw the charcoal come out, she darn near started yelling at us.

Knowing that she was watching us and being fairly well certain that she wouldn't hesitate to call the fire department, we made alternate cooking plans.

Happy trails, Irene.

Breaking News

This is the back end of Aaron's bike. Notice anything missing?

He's pretty proud - this has been a long time coming.

We couldn't get him off his bike. He rode all over the campground.

So happy!

And then...

He looked like this.

I don't blame him. Ouch! But then he surprised us all...
And got back on.

Hooray, Aaron!

I'm proud of you!

Wrapping It Up

Well, we are heading out in the morning - one last camping trip before the boys start school on Monday. We'll be back on Sunday afternoon and then I'll have to give up my carefree, laid-back summer attitude and become the morning-rushing, homework-directing, get-down-to-business kind of Mom that I am during the school year. The tricky part will be to get Cam and Aaron to give up their own summery attitudes. I think we've had a good summer, but it's definitely time to have some structure.

Okay, not quite yet. It's only Wednesday, and for the next three and a half days...

this will be me!!!!

Hopefully I'll be posting again on Monday, but until then,

what are you doing to wrap up your summer?

Your place or mine?

A week or so ago, I was talking with my friend and she was telling me about a trip that she's planned to take with her family in a few months. They are going to Oregon, staying in a cabin on the beach. When she and her husband were first married, they used to go there and loved it so much that they even talked of moving there. There's lots to do and see, including going crabbing. After you catch a few crabs, you can take them to the man on the shore who cooks 'em for you, right there, and then you boil your corn on the cob and you have your dinner. How fun does that sound? She and her husband have a lot of memories there. She called it their "place". One of the reasons that they are so excited for the trip is that they'll be sharing their "place" with their kids. After this trip, they'll all have the memories. Oregon will belong to the whole family.

Cameron was with us as she told about all the fun things they plan to do. He chimed in,

"We've got a place, Mom."

Oh, please don't say it's Walmart, I thought.

"It's Arches." Whew.

Yes, Arches National Park. Really, we've only been a handful of times, but we love it there. And I know that one of the biggest reasons we love it is because we've shared it as a family. There's nothing like seeing your child be amazed . And seeing joy on their faces, as they throw themselves into moments that only happen when you're away from home, away from the TV and computers and all the daily stuff. Moments that happen when you are in your "place".




Lately, our place has been Bear Lake. We've had some really good times there, and Troy and I feel so blessed to be able to take our family and just be. Be together, be relaxed, be lazy and happy, playing and carefree. To be in our place and make memories with our family.









Do you have a place? Where is it and why do you love it?