Xan: Kerr Lake 2015!

We have just returned from VongsaCamping 2015 at Kerr Lake. This year's group: Mom, Dad, Kathleen, myself, Catherine, Chris VA, and also a cameo from Monica and Devin. Linden was notably absent, and yet somehow constantly present by phone, despite limited reception and significant timezone differences.

Regardless, good times were had by all. And, as this is technically a food blog, it must be said that we ate particularly well this year. Mom used to say that after a week of camping, regular food tastes amazing. However, I think this has slowly become disingenuous. The food gets better every year and at some point we just started eating better than we typically would at home.

What happened to us and when did we get so spoiled? It's hard to pinpoint a single cause, but if I had to describe the evolution of our camping menu, it would go something like this:

1. In the beginning, we were like everyone else. Beans and franks, you know? And grill food -- burgers, I suppose, and more franks? Not sure. I'm too young to actually remember the beginning, frankly, but I think it was a very frankly time.
2. Over the years, we picked up some great camping recipes from other campers. Chicken Chili and so forth. Things that are easy to prepare in quantity with limited tools. 
3. However, we came to realize that it's so hard to cook anything in the wilderness that we ought to prepare as much as possible in advance. Dad would bring ribs that just needed reheating. Mom would precook onions and sausage and I would premix a dozen spices and then a Moroccan ragout involved nothing more than heating up a can of diced tomatoes together with precooked onions/sausage/spices, ready in 10 minutes.
4. As more and more partial and complete meals were prepared in advance, planning took on a life of its own. Meals were either planned or panned. And it turns out that if you do 10 times as much planning, you can eat twice as well.
5. From here, we continued to optimize, optimize, optimize, until we had so many great recipes that it became impossible to even cut the menu down to an amount we could eat in a week. This time, we had to have a two-dinner day to make room for it all. I even stopped catching catfish, which I'm told is an "improvement" in the menu, even though I don't necessarily agree.

What do you think, Vongsas? Is that what happened, or did I just make it all up?

I will now recap the food highlights of the trip, at least from my perspective.

Chapter 1: A cake with True Grit.

A few years ago, we discovered you can make cake in a Dutch oven over coals. Unfortunately, we had a little trouble with the orientation of our Pineapple Upside Down cake, which a certain person extracted from the oven only to drop it right into the sand. It was a very confusing experience. One minute we were looking forward to cake, the next moment we were looking down. We dusted it off as best we could, but it was certainly a cake with True Grit. It could have been much worse, actually, if it had fallen upside-down...or is that right-side-up? Whereas cats always land on their feet and toast always lands butter-side-down, Pineapple Upside Down Cake is guaranteed to land ambiguously.

In any case, this year we took no chances. We did a Texas Sheet Cake instead, which is always the right way up, and I was in charge of removing it from the pot, and there were no accidents, and it was glorious. You don't mess with Texas Sheet Cake.

Chapter 2: The Fires of Mount Doom.
Perhaps you don't know it yet, but there is really only one question you should be asking right now. You should be saying, "Xan, I get that you guys baked the cake in the Dutch oven, but what about the icing?"

You should be asking this because the answer is that we melted the icing on the fiery slopes of the goddamn Volcano we built with our bare hands. 

One tries to minimize the cursing on a family food blog, but in this case we have found that sanitizing only makes the Volcano angry. 

Specifically, what you see here is Chris wielding his trusty 40-oz bottle of 63% ethyl alcohol Germ-X hand sanitizer. The Volcano clearly does not appreciate attempts to clean up its act.

How this happened: Me and Chris are, of course, always looking for new ways to control fire. So I pitched him the idea to build a camping oven from scratch and see how good we could get it going. We quickly put together a small test oven with a few rocks and wet sand:

We were impressed with how well it worked and decided we needed Something Bigger. So we collected a bunch of rocks and dredged the lake bed for mud to act as mortar, which was baked pretty hard by the heat of the oven. Here is the oven in progress:

We found some mystery bricks and an old grate left behind by another camper. The fuel would go on the grate, and ashes would fall below like in a grill.

Some nice flat rocks would make for the roof of the oven and double as a stone cooktop.

We also added a smoking chamber which in retrospect was a mistake, as we did not actually have access to any woods that would be nice for smoking foods. It's mostly pine and sweetgum in the nutrient-poor soil around the lake.

Of course, at some point Chris decided that the chimney should be a volcano, and it was all downhill from there, in a Run-For-Your-Lives, Kill-a-Man-Jaro sort of sense.

To be perfectly honest, after hours of building this behemoth, we were not at all sure it would, you know, work when we lit it up. But as soon as we set it ablaze, smoke just shot out of the volcano.

Of course, we had to name it Mt. Doom.

One fire ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness BLIND THEM!

Anyway, you get the idea. It was pretty awesome. The next day, Chris built up the volcano even more.

Lake mud, cast into the fiery chasm whence it flame!

Sadly, I do not have any pictures of it on fire. Nevertheless, the stone cooktop got hot enough to toast our garlic bread.

Chapter 3: Chop chop! Pull pull! Pork pork!

While Chris was building out the Volcano, I was also engaged in another ambitious project: spit-roasting an 8 lb pork shoulder roast over the open fire. I wanted to make a spit from scratch. This turned out to be difficult. In fact I was fortunate to have access to a couple of particularly helpful tools.

First of all, this year finally saw the arrival of a proper felling axe. We retired our beloved hatchet, affectionately named Old Faithful by Chris, for its longstanding habit of faithfully flying off the handle in mid-swing. I will shed no tears for the departure of Old Faithful, and no fingers either.

Wielding the mighty felling axe, I was able to effortlessly hew the necessary lumber from a downed pine. I fashioned a pair of tripods to hold the spit, and used one of Dad's woodworking tools to remove bark and sharpen the spit itself:

Make no mistake -- that spear would have skewered a wild boar! But I had only purchased an NC fishing permit, not a hunting permit, and so I was forced to rely on the domesticated variety. (For now). We coated it in Memphis Dust and went right through the center.

The idea here is to have a main fire blazing off to the side, which generates embers, which are moved near the pork to cook it under moderate heat in a controlled fashion. The fire itself might contain perhaps a whole tree..

I always do like to include a whole tree in a fire like this, because you can just keep pushing it in as it combusts. This one was long dead and dried, but still quite heavy and Chris helped me to drag it over.

In the absence of a battery-operated rotisserie, draft animals, or fellow campers willing to do my bidding, I simply turned the spit every 20-30 minutes. After 7 hours on the spit, the pork looked like this:

Can you smell that? It smells GUUD!

Not done yet, though, as we were going for pulled pork.

Chapter 3.5: Lightning Strikes!

Pulled pork is an all-day affair. Unfortunately, all the day was not fair. Before the pork could finish, we were beset by a Most Epic Thunderstorm and had to resort to Backup Contingency Rain Plan #1, which was to throw the pork into the Dutch Oven, surround it with coals, cover it with foil, and wait out the storm.

Two hours and two inches of rain later, the storm finished. An hour after that, so did the pork. We pulled it, and dug in!

Pretty good, under the circumstances! And I will say that despite the fall of rain and night, we never once dropped the pork.

Epilog

Of course this is but a small sampling of the Kerr Lake 2015 menu. I wish I had pictures of all the food, but it's hard when your phone is mostly off. Maybe next time we can try to put together a more comprehensive review. In any case, I hope you have enjoyed this recap of our caper, jumbled as it may be. Yeah, think about it.

An epilog, charred. From the Greek epi- meaning "upon." A log on a log is an epilog. A frog on a log is an epifrog. 

A pig on a spit on a log, to wit: epihog. 

Easter Baking

I have been quite remiss in posting about my culinary adventures, of which there have been many in the last few months.  But in honor of the holiday, I'm going to post about the three stages of my Easter baking!

Stage 1: Bunny, Chick and Lamb cakes.  I used a mold that I bought on Easter sale at Karstadt, and used a Germany recipe, which included grated marzipan!  This was new for me, and I must say even the baking marzipan here bears slight resemblance to what is found in the UK.

Stage 2: Two days later, I made cupcakes.  If you look in the first picture, you can see two different kinds of Easter flavored cupcake liners!  I made coconut cupcakes from a Barefoot Contessa recipe.  They were quite popular at work, but I wasn't so happy with them because there was also almond extract in, and it was a bit too strong for me, I suspect because the coconut here being dessicated and un-sweetened, the flavor doesn't offset the almond as much as it should.

Stage 3: I was invited by a couple of co-workers for Easter brunch today, and I volunteered to bring supplies for Easter cookie decorating.  This picture is just from the beginning; about half an hour later the table was completely full.  It was a hit!  And the guests were from all over the world, so some had never decorated cookies before.  And best of all, I finally got to use all of my Easter cookie cutters.  And the second picture is my cookies.

Linden's Coconut Cake and Hazelnut Plum Crumb Tart

So I am beginning to start a slight weight-loss program, but it hasn't gotten to the part where I exclude delicious cakes and sweets from my diet, which is good because I wouldn't be able to explain this post. My current (likely unrealistic) plan involves eating better breakfasts and lunches, and not worrying about my cake intake yet. These are my most recent attempts.

The first is a coconut cake with chocolate chunks, which was super delicious, but probably more calorie-dense than I would like to admit. It does, on the other hand, travel fairly well, although there is some coconut loss along the way. (A big slice of this cake travelled with me to Paris a few weeks ago.)

This cake was one of those, "I want to bake something but have nothing interesting in the pantry" shots. Found and modified a recipe off epicurious for it - next time I would use less chocolate.

This cake has a better story. There is a store in Engand called Waitrose, which has a wonderful habit of making extreme price slashes when its food is about to go off. Right before Easter, they had some extra good reductions because they were closed Easter. I got a bag of six plums for 30p, and thought I had better use them up quickly rather than eat squashy plums.

So, I made this delicious hazelnut plum crumble, which has a hazelnut crumb base and topping, and a custard with plums going through the middle. Mm, tasty.  (It also has the advantage of using up some ground hazelnuts in the pantry, which were left over from chocolate hazelnut christmas cookies.) I would heartily recommend this one to anyone who is looking for some delicious good hearty fruity baking. (I always use milk instead of cream in these recipes, as I don't see the point of buying cream and it's still delicious with milk.) Pulled off the very reliable smitten kitchen.

Linden's Delicious Vengeful Desserts

Well, I was certainly not happy to hear that the entire family Conspired Against Me regarding the pizza at the beach (except for Papa, who shows his love in other ways).

So I guess it's time to bring out pictures of my delicious cakes. Of all the desserts I make, these are the most requested and most delicious.

The first has its roots in the humble American coffee cake - a confusing name in this country, since all of their cakes tend to have the dryness which distinguishes coffee cakes from other cakes and makes it good for tea time. But this one adds rhubarb, and lots of cinnamon and a hint of ginger, and makes a not too dry, not too dense, not too sweet, but very delicious cake. Topped with big crumbs of cinnamon and brown sugar and butter. Then, while the cake is in the oven, the cakey bit rises up over the crumbs, subsuming them and making a lava-field looking top, which results in what you might think of as Cake Surprise. When you fork off another bite, you don't know whether it will contain a chunk of rhubarb, a buried big crumb, or both!

The second cake is even more delicious, and much richer. It is a torte, made by whipping eggs for half of eternity until they get light and fluffy and ten times their original size, and then browning butter over the stove, for a nice round nutty flavor. Then, to top it off, there's large chunks of chocolate and pears. It is  delicious, and by the time I got my camera, two thirds of it was gone.  Not a great picture, but if you look at the sides you can see chunks of pear and chocolate hiding inside the delicious moist dense cakiness.

 

(Oh, am I making those of you on diets want some? I'm sorry, maybe you should have thought about that before you Conspired.)

And you know what else, because I'm feeling a little vindictive about the Lies, we're not going to stop with cakes. Here are my delicious raspberry-topped lemon muffins, an excellent balance between sweet and lemon, with raspberries perched on top for some extra zing.

Oh and in all of my hard work on my thesis, I almost forgot my double dark chocolate chunk muffins, which are deliciously moist and densely chocolatey, with big chunks of chocolate lurking inside, just waiting to attack you with deliciousness. Some even say they are the best chocolate muffins they have ever had, and I am tempted to agree.

There, I'm feeling a bit better now. Back to work.

Linden's 4th of July Cheesecake

Now before the pictures, I want to offer a general disclaimer that this isn't all my work. We all know I'm not very good at things like patterns and decoration, and that when given a box full of colorful crayons I will draw a panda. And people will think it's a snowman. So before people think I have made great leaps and bounds in this area, this wasn't decorated by me! I did all the baking and slicing of fruit, and then Chris hid the mess I had made of the top of the cheesecake by putting fruit on it.

This cheesecake was taken to a Fourth of July Bash, funded and hosted by the US Military. When planning my dessert contribution, I worried, "what if this isn't patriotic enough, they may not let me in. especially because I am arriving with a Red Coat." I instructed Red Coat Chris to wear the other two Patriotic Colors (having informed him earlier that it is general good practice to wear two of the three colors to a 4th celebration - I myself was wearing blue and red - or all three if you can manage it tastefully), and to hold the cheesecake out in front of him and be very quiet upon arrival, to disguise his accent and help ease his entry.

We made it through to the garden, where the grill and food were set up, and requisitioned ourselves some NonAlcoholic Beverages and barbecue chicken sandwiches (I made sure Red Coat Chris' had some lettuce, because Xan is not the only one who finds themself on vegetable duty)

The US Military reports that my cheesecake was delicious, and eaten in record speed, and that people were fighting each other for the last forkfulls (so it must be true). It disappeared fastest of everything at the barbecue - initially it was attractive and appealing, after one shake of the lamb's tail half of it had been consumed by a small bastion of Africanists who were considering whether they could justify eating the other half, and after two shakes it was all gone (they decided that it was more ethical to give some to those less fortunate). I myself managed to secure a small slice, and I can confirm that it was super delicious. I even managed to requisition two blueberries and strawberries, which were delicious as well (English strawberries taste better, which always puzzles me since it rains so much here).

 However, I think we can all recognize that in spite of the delicious fruits and decorations, the really impressive thing here is me.

Grandma: Almond Cake

Yum yum yum!

My Winter Cookings

I haven't ventured much beyond my normal repertoire this winter--yet. But these are a couple of things I took pictures of. The amazing vegetarian quesadilla that I can no longer make because it's too unhealthy. But sooooo delicious.



And a Texas sheet cake that I made for a birthday... Which went over incredibly well.

German Chocolate Cake

I stalled on putting up my recipes because I wasn't sure how to handle typing the recipes out from the cookbooks I usually take them from--too much effort!

What I'll do instead is say where I got the recipe from, and if you want it, I can send you a digital image of the recipe.

This is the German Chocolate Cake I made two weekends ago, from the 1997 Joy of Cooking. Yes, that is my lawn in the background.