How I cook in the woods ⛺
Dispatch from my annual camping trip!
Hi friends!
Greetings once more from the woods of Cape Cod, where I am in my second and final week of our annual camping excursion.
This being my 12th summer here, I must admit I’ve gotten pretty good at campsite cooking. In the beginning, the lack of running water and electricity made our gazebo seem like an entirely unsuitable place to prepare meals. Fast forward ten-plus years and it is literally my favorite place to cook. So, I figured I’d tell you a bit about how we do it and what I actually make.
Before we dive in, some fun announcements!
I had the pleasure of chatting with Chef Whitney Aronoff - an old friend from my Natural Gourmet Institute days - on her podcast High Vibration Living. We talked about my time working at NGI, my approach to health-focused cooking, and how I reconcile it with my Ukrainian heritage. You can listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Speaking of my upbringing, I recently contributed an essay to EatingWell! It touches on my memories of Ukrainian summers and has a recipe for the ultimate Ukrainian summer salad.
So about campsite cooking. The only real downside is that it requires owning a number of bulky items that we only use for two weeks out of the year. Here’s how we do it:
We put up a gazebo like this over the provided picnic table to keep our stuff dry and [relatively] bug-free. Instead of a fridge, we use a big cooler in which we replace a block of ice every couple of days. (The ice comes from the camp store! Quaint, huh?)
To store dry goods (homemade granola and lots of pasta), we use a plastic bin that’s relatively rain-proof. For cooking, a propane stove works surprisingly well. And finally, to resolve the whole no-running-water thing, we attach a giant water dispenser to a tree with ratchet straps (Rene’s innovation at its finest!). All in all, it’s quite efficient!
For breakfast, there’s lots of eggs, avocado toast, and fresh salads.
For dinner, I tend to stick to one-pot meals like curries, pastas, fried rice, and grain salads. This massaman-style curry is a crowd favorite, as is this chickpea pasta. Store-bought pesto is a staple of our cooler, with which I make this pesto rice salad and mayo-less pasta salad.
We also like to pick up fresh veg from the local farmstand, which we prepare simply as salads or by grilling/sautéing.
Something I’ve finally learned after all these years is that a handful of condiments brought from home make a huge difference in basic gazebo cooking. This year I have balsamic vinegar, Ukrainian sunflower oil, Yondu, sesame oil, and soy sauce. For dry seasonings, I brought my faves: smoked paprika, ground cumin, garlic powder, and Trader Joe’s mushroom seasoning.
I hope this gives you good glimpse into how cooking in the woods can be more than tinned beans and hot dogs! I’d love to read your camping tips/hacks in the comments.