On camping

I am learning that camping means a lot of different things to different people. Me? I grew up car camping. You know, you pack all your gear and food in your car and then drive up to the camp site with a nearby grill and a place to set up your tent. Running water, showers and bathrooms are usually within a short walk from the tent. All sustenance is in a cooler with ready-made items such as potato salad, cold fried chicken and sliced veggies. You spend your days hiking, swimming and playing games. That is what I think of when I think of camping.

Husband, on the other hand, has a wholly different perspective on camping. While he didn't grow up camping with his family, he developed a love for playing in the wild while he was in college. Every year he tries to take a trip with a few friends to a remote part of the country and they try to survive. That is a little melodramatic but not completely untrue. In his form of camping, a tent is only used if absolutely necessary (i.e. rain storms). But mainly tents are where you store your gear, not for sleeping. No need for running water -- drinking water is gathered from streams, etc., and filtered. Food is packed that does not need refrigeration...freeze-dried meals, trail mix and any fish that can be caught are the usual provisions. They like to go off-trail and practice their orienteering. They prefer to not run into another human being. They live "off the grid" for those few days and love it.

So, when Husband and I decided to go camping last weekend, I wasn't quite sure what kind of camping we might be doing. I've vocalized in the past that Husband's boy trips sounded, well, miserable. But knowing that this year his usual boy's trip was not happening, I wanted him to have a trip that wasn't completely modern camping. So, last Friday afternoon our adventure began with a 3 hour drive to a state park. Husband drove, I read gossip magazines (this is always my vacation treat...don't judge me) and the iPod randomly selected the music for the ride. We sang loudly and danced poorly without self-consciousness as you can only do alone in a locked bedroom with posters of teen idols or with your spouse on sleepy country roads.

We arrived at the park headquarters, filled up our water supply and slung on our loaded packs and buckled up for the hike to our back country campsite. Unbeknownst to us, we picked the site
that had the most difficult hike of all the campsites -- the trail at times was very narrow, rocky and mostly uphill. It was a challenge. We were relieved to finally reach our site and even more relieved to find that we were the only campers at this site. We set quickly to the task of setting up our tent. Then it was time to start a fire to make our planned dinner of lemon pepper mushroom penne. As Husband worked on other things, I foraged for downed and dead tree limbs for our fire. Foraging for firewood was foreign for me. But I was a good forager or so Husband told me. There was something inspiring about dragging big limbs from the woods to our campsite...like I could do anything if I could do this.

We slept soundly the first night in our tent. At the first sight of light, Husband bounded up like a puppy who finally found his legs and was ready to play with anything that moved around him. I was not so bright and peppy and Husband left me to my sleep while he worked on more foraging, fire and coffee. For breakfast, Husband tried to make bacon and eggs in a paper bag over hot coals. Sadly, the bag caught on fire and we watched eggs ooze slowly through the bag and onto the coals. We salvaged some sooty bacon, cooked it in a pan and bravely ate it trying to ignore the black specks dotted on the meaty slices. We also ate the almond oat cornmeal scones I had made for the trip. They were tasty but a little crumbly...made a mental note to work on that recipe to make it camping worthy.

We spent that day hiking for hours and excited to eat our trail mix, rustic salami & cheese baguette sandwiches and my peanut butter oat bars. My oat bars were also a bit crumbly...yet another recipe to tweak. Another mental note, another project for home. My kind of challenge.

After our day of hiking we made a quick trip to the nearby town for a snack of wings and a cold beer before we headed back to our campsite. We lounged on the tarp-covered ground, leaning against knotty handmade logs surrounding the fire pit. I read Gourmet & Food & Wine magazines while Husband practiced new knots from an outdoor survival book. The wind was still and the sun blazed down on us until we had to get up to find shade or at least find a breezier place to rest. We walked to a nearby overlook of hilly corn fields. The wind blew calming waves in the cornfields and brought heat relief for us. Storm clouds soon followed as we rushed back to our campsite to cover our gear and our precious firewood. We huddled in our stifling tent while the rain made pinging noises off our tent made for two. We made the best of the heat by watching an episode of The Closer on the iPod. There is nothing like the sweet southern twang of Kyra Sedgwick's character interrogating rough hooligans in Los Angeles to get your mind off being stuck in a tent during a hot summer thunderstorm.

The storm left almost as quickly as it came and we crawled out of our tent ready to start a fire for our dinner of ground pork with roasted veggies. Husband burned wood for the hot embers as I diced and spiced and put our dinner in foil pouches for roasting. The end result was a perfect last meal by the fire.

In the end, I made it through camping that was more like Husband's style of camping without whining, with new skills learned and with an appreciation for the simplicity of backwoods camping. While I do admit, I prefer plumbing and running water nearby, I know now that I can enjoy camping without the usual amenities. And hopes of all hopes, Husband also agreed to car camping as part our camping future. Fried chicken and potato salad, here we come!

Of Beastie Boys, celebrations and ridiculous amounts of pizzas

It recently was graduation time for the college students who study across the street from my coffee shop. This time always sad for me as I get to know a lot of the students and grow quite attached to them. This year was especially hard. These students have been customers for four out of the five years of our ownership. I will miss seeing many of them. I gladly worked on a recent Saturday, the day before graduation, as I knew I would see many bright eyes for the last time. One of my favorites brought in her family for lunch. Before she left, she pulled me aside, gave me a hug, and said, "This coffee shop changed my life!" She killed me. She promised to visit as she would only be four hours away. Another student told me the only thing she would miss about college was our coffee shop. Again, killed. What a bittersweet Saturday morning. What friendly faces that will hopefully light up someone else's coffee shop.

I could not dwell on my bittersweet moments this Saturday morning. I had to rush home to work with Husband to prepare for our Pizza Throwdown at my parent's house. Since two birthdays (mine & my oldest nephew's) and Mother's Day landed within close proximity, we decided to have one giant celebration.

At Easter I asked my nephew what his favorite food was. He quickly answered, "Pizza, beef jerky, blue cheese and, oh yea, pickles!" I, for some reason, thought I would try to make a pizza that combined all these things. I talked to my sister-in-law, Sistah (as she would like to be known in the blogworld), about this and the Pizza Throwdown was hatched. Everyone would make their own pizza pie and hopefully be the proud winner of whatever prize Mom determined.

As I ran down the stairs to our duplex apartment, I heard the quick, obnoxious thumping of loud music that usually only comes from our next door neighbor's. As I approached the door, I realized that we were the culprits of the neighborhood noise disturbance. I did not recognize the rap-style music coming out of our sterio. I did, however, follow my nose to the kitchen where I found Husband already prepping for the Pizza Throwdown and bopping his head to the music. I greeted him and asked what we were listening to. "Beastie Boys," he chirped and continued chopping and bopping. I'm definitely not a Beastie Boys fan but with a beat so in your face as a drill seargant is to a brand new cadet, my hips are able to obey the beat without even enjoying the source. I will say, it did make for quick chopping and mixing. Maybe Beastie Boys will be on my kitchen playlist in the future.

In the end, our family made four pizzas. There was Sistah's thin crust sausauge with black and green olives. Mom's deep dish pepperoni with cheese-stuffed crust (so easy -- put string cheese in the crust and crimp over -- who knew?). Husband's Greek-inspired pizza with feta cheese, sausage, tomatoes, and peppers. Then, of course, my nephew-inspired pickle, blue cheese & beef jerky pizza. Now, don't be alarmed. I didn't actually use beef jerky. I just couldn't do it. So, instead, I sliced summer beef sausage and baked it in the oven for about 20 minutes until the edges got crispy. I thought it was a good jerky stand-in.

No one was willing to take a vote on the winner. I guess we are all just too nice. Husband and I were the default winners since we brought two pizzas. We were the lucky winners of two fake grass skirts. Mine just might be my new apron.

In the end, I don't have an amazing pizza recipe for you...yet. This was my first experience in making a pizza from scratch. I hope for many amazing pizza recipes to come as this blog journey continues.