The joys of camping

We took our annual camping trip this past week.

It has been our tradition the last 10 years to go to the Cascades and camp at a family campground on a small lake in Washington.

We can sit on the dock or swim or paddle on our boards during the day and then lounge at our campsite with the lake view and starry sky after a delicious dinner. 

This year, many traditions have not been possible; this was another experience we had to adapt. 

We booked a spot in the Shuswap, hoping to keep up our lake time and still have good weather. Good food would be even easier, I mused, without the limitations of transporting fresh items across the border.

We left home with a positive attitude. 

Full disclosure: when I say “camping” I mean with a camper trailer. Our 13-foot, 1973 Trav-L-mate is considered vintage, but it does have the comforts of home.

Hubby and I decided we just aren’t willing to sleep on the ground any more or end up with everything wet if it rains. As a bonus, we have more capacity for cooking and a few other creature comforts. 

By current standards we seem to fall somewhere in the middle of the camping population. There are still plenty of tenters out there, bless their hearts, though many folks go for a much more cozy kind of vibe with 20-40 feet of trailer complete with air conditioning, television and all the appliances of home. 

Our philosophy on camping is the same as it is with the rest of life: whichever way you approach an experience, you get the most out of it if you embrace it. Otherwise, why bother? There is no need to suffer unnecessarily. 

Any regular reader of this column will know that I come by my Gourmande title honestly – food in all its forms has long been a priority in my life and having married a chef I eat very well.

That doesn’t mean we never eat burgers or poutine. We do like to try new things too though, and camping is a fun time to do that.

This year our efforts included these delights:

• Shrimp n’ grits – this is a practical camping meal as it uses few dishes and cooks quickly. We had shrimp and spicy sausage with a few veggies, all cooked on the grill. Grits (recipe link) is a sort of creamy, soft base for the stronger spicy flavours.
• Flatbread – we did thin flatbread cooked on lake stones on the grill to be funky, but we have done pizza many times too, with a baking stone. It’s not hard, and lots of fun. Recipe link.
• S’mores from scratch – we went all out this time, but any one of these steps takes your s’mores experience to a whole new level. Homemade biscuits, homemade marshmallows (with toasted coconut just to be decadent), homemade chocolate ganache – instead of chocolate pieces because it’s already soft – and some caramel sauce too, just in case (wink wink)

By this point, you might be shaking your head and thinking we should stay home and cook, leaving the real campers to enjoy their hot dogs cooked over the fire. Or perhaps you’re like Jim Gaffigan the comedian, not understanding why anyone would go camping at all? 

We might have had folks like that across from us on this trip. We noticed the Skip the Dishes delivery vehicle pull up to their site just as we were pouring the wine to go with our flatbread, barbecue tri-tip roast and herb butter baby potatoes and zucchini. I suppose they felt they were suffering by having to cook anything at all. 

I’d love to hear where you stand on this issue. You can’t leave comments here, but I invite you to visit my Happy Gourmande Facebook page. Let me know what your favourite camp food is, maybe share a recipe, or feel free to vent about how camping is not your thing.

One last bit of advice for you: if you head out to the Shuswap for a dose of the great outdoors, don’t forget your bug spray. We weren’t the only ones feasting in the forest. 

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.