A good friend of ours asked us how we prepare food out in the wild. We’re not some ultralight, 20 miles per day super-serious hikers and we love having lots of luxury items. Our backpacks aren’t too light, but then again we’re pretty slow hikers. We hike up to 3-5 miles. We usually camp one night, and then go back home.
It’s a team building event, and anyone on the team that wants to come along is invited. Everyone is relieved that this isn’t a mandatory event, and we don’t believe in forcing people.
The one thing we’re great at is having a very nice meal in the great outdoors. Spices, a nice water boiling system, a meat container and a foldable grill are a must. We got everything we need from our friend’s cousin’s store – Northwest Outlet
The Cooking Equipment You’ll Need
Let’s get down to business. First off, you’ll need either a backpacking stove or a cooking system. We use the Jetboil Cooking System; it’s not the lightest one out there, but it boils water fast. Here’s a pro-tip: put your boiled water into a vacuum tube, and you’ll have warm water all day long.
Bring two pots, preferably aluminum or titanium. Alu or Ti pots conduct heat better, which means that they’ll evenly heat the food up. You’ll burn less food, and keep it tasting great.
A skillet, a cast iron one, is what we use to make fried eggs and French toast in pig’s fat. We have an old, trusty skillet I inherited from my grandmother, and it still works great. The taste is out of this world, and you’ll never want to go back to a Teflon-coated or ceramic frying pan.
Mugs are used for tea and coffee. Be sure to grab a better quality tea like Verdant Tea and Crimson Lotus Tea, the difference between something you order from a trusted merchant and store bought is something everyone should experience. Buy once, cry once, but you’ll have an amazing cup of tea in the middle of a beautiful forest.
The gourmet kitchen set is a quick and painless way to pack up all the utensils you’ll need on the trail. Besides that, we bring our regular forks, knives and spoons. The spork, foon or whatever other unholy utensil combination is something we have a strong dislike for.
What camping food do we bring ?
We bring some freeze-dried food, and a cooler that has some dry meat, bread and eggs inside. Some beer or other cold beverage, and maybe a coke. What we bring depends on who we have on the team.
Mountain House freeze-dried food is a good. It’s a hearty meal, though a bit bland. Add spices (pepper and garlic powder work with pretty much everything), be sure to stir it, and close the pouch. Keep it closed two minutes longer than what the package says. Be sure to bring lots of granola bars, they’re a great choice for a snack.
As an added luxury, a wine bottle and plastic wine glasses with removable stands (the real wine glasses broke too easily). This is the most important piece of our camping trip.
After we were done, we’d just lie down and talk the night away, staring at the stars above. When you need to wash the dishes, that scraper with whiskers combo did the job.
Conclusion
That’s basically it, that’s how we camp. We’ve spent lots of time talking to other people, hikers, campers and outdoors men, and they all told us we were doing it wrong. That there were more ways to camp, and we even tried doing what they do.
In the end, we just defaulted back to what we like. A bit of a hike, a single night out in the woods, and nice, tasty meals, and a quick trip back home in time to check our emails and go back to work. It’s the best way to camp with an entire team of professionals, of which most aren’t avid hikers or campers. Having lots of people also makes distributing the load a breeze.