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Camping and my carnal food behavior

June 26, 2018

I just finished Jim Gaffigan’s book “Food: A Love Story” and, in it, he calls New Year’s Eve the Vegas of all things eating. If that’s the case, camping is the Amsterdam. There are things I consume when camping that I haven’t considered acceptable since I carried a 90210 lunchbox.

I love food. That’s no secret. Not to people who follow me here and not to people who know me and have watched me describe a delicious meal – typically using my hands with my eyes closed – in person, offline. Fat is my abusive life partner and sugar is my filthy mistress. I love them both, equally, and I can’t fathom a world without them in it, though in my heart I know both are toxic as hell.

While I can clean out my fridge and pull together a satisfying salad on a normal weekday, when I’m adulting, the second we hook up our camper (Emma #2) and I sit down at a picnic table I’m stripped of all dietary dignity. I crack open a hard cider and before you know it, I’m elbow-deep in Little Debbies. I don’t recognize myself. Or do I? On some level, camping Courtney is much like 10-year-old Courtney; dippin’ those chips like my metabolism won’t quit.

People who don’t camp might not get it. There’s something about being in a situation where a raccoon could come up at any time and steal your marshmallows that forces you to get savage about your snacks. It’s primal. Well, it’s like 35% primal, 65% something to do while you’re sitting around watching other people sitting around.

Here, in no particular order, is a list of regrettable things I have eaten while camping in my 30s:

Please note that this list is [sadly] not comprehensive.

Our typical agenda is to pull out of town after work on Fridays, eat something carb-centric in the car en route, consume all the food stuffs and beers on Saturday, roll back into town Sunday afternoon sittin’ heavy with a raging stomach ache and sugar migraine. Wait two weeks, repeat.

But there have been some bright spots and good intentions peppered in there over the past four years. I find that the saving grace is 1) a plan and 2) getting the hell away from the camper. Hank and I spent a weekend in Emma #2 while on our 14 Day Vegan Challenge and discovered the beauty of a cashew cream cheese, cucumber and sprouts sandwich. I wrote down every meal that we were going to put in our pie holes on that trip, snacks included, and it panned out.

I also find that, if I hike, if I kayak, if I go sit down by the swimming hole, I come out much lighter than if I hang by the cooler of shandy and get down with the Frito Lay family. You are the company you keep, and when I hang out with the likes of Ben & Jerry, Nabisco and Famous Amos, things get out of control. There are those in this world who can sit at a folding table lined with confections and salty snacks and converse with others and act like a human being who has access to food on a regular basis. I am not one of those folks. And I think knowing that is half the battle.

When I ruminate on my dietary disfunction, I often come back to the fact that I’m fairly certain Pinterest has saved me from full-on blimp mode. I am an obsessive pinner. Things I want to try, things I know I’ll never try, but I’ll tell ya this, those recipes come in handy when you’re preparing for battle against Pringles and pudgie pies.

Here are some of my go-to camping (and non-camping) recipes that please the picky masses and don’t make me feel like an obese sloth.

BREAKFAST

Breakfast sandwiches
I don’t have a recipe for this, but I like mine with canadian bacon, a slice of Chao creamy “cheese”, egg, spinach and vegenaise on a whole wheat english muffin. It’s like your favorite greasy fast food hangover fix, with a big girl makeover.

LUNCH

Hilary’s World’s Best Vegan Burger
Veggie burgers can be kind of gross, let’s be honest. I’ve tried many and, as a girl who doesn’t care for beans, this option is where it’s at. I like mine with a Chao “cheese” slice, avocado and vegenaise.

ENTREE

Potatoes, Shrimp, Corn and Sausage
Friends of ours made this on a fall camping trip and it’s been in the rotation ever since. You could play around with the proteins and veggies to come up with something your crew is in to, but we go for something like these Cajun Shrimp Foil Packets featured on Favorite Family Recipes. Each of the chicks picks out their favorite bits, but I just take it all in at once. Add a dab of Sriracha and you’ll never look back.

SIDE

Marinated Grilled Veggies with Whipped Goat Cheese
By Viktoria’s Table

This is predominantly healthy with a smooth, creamy smooch on the side to get you through. I love goat cheese, so I’m all in here. I prepare the goat cheese mixture ahead of time and grill the veggies on an electric skillet outside of the camper. If you prefer a more rustic approach, throw a cast iron skillet over an open flame and get that Brokeback Mountain vibe going. I mean … You know what I mean.

DESSERT

Grain Free Tahini Brownies
By ambitious kitchen

These mugs are gooey and decadent and everything you want in a brownie. I am 2000 percent obsessed. Plus, you sound super fancy when you tell people the secret ingredient isn’t peanut butter, like their taste buds are telling them. It’s tahini, like the sophisticated folks eat.

Try That With Matt, Wellness

Livin la Vida Vegan Days 7-9 (happy campers with cucumber sandwiches)

September 25, 2017

I’m back! The girl who went into a weekend of camping on a mission to stay vegan and came out on the other side with recipes to share.

Friday had more landmines than the whole weekend put together. Thursday morning I got an email from my boss (like, my boss’s boss), asking if I wanted to grab lunch and catch up on a few key initiatives. Yes! I absolutely do. I most definitely do. I’m looking so forward to i– Aw, crap … What the hell am I going to eat? My official response went something like:

Dear inspiring leader,
I would be thrilled to catch up. One thing I feel like I should mention, I am doing this vegan thing for 14 days and it would be amazing if we could go somewhere with super boring salads or the one vegetarian place in town with questionable options. Great, thanks for this opportunity!

But people have a way of surprising you. Not only did she keep our lunch date after my pain in the ass request, she actually looked up the menu at the restaurant ahead of time and found a vegan-friendly salad for me. Say what? Michael Scott, hand over your World’s Greatest Boss mug, am I right? And, it was so damn good, you guys. I didn’t take a picture because, you know, corporate adulting, but it was a glorious mouthparty of cashews, avocado, cranberries, kale, spinach, fried tortilla strips and an avocado lemon dressing. I only had to have them hold the creme fraiche, and I don’t know what the hell that is anyway.

We were leaving for our camping adventure Friday evening. Our tradition on these weekends is for me to pick up Jimmy John’s on the way home and then we eat it en route to our destination. Welp, that’s not going to work. I came home and gathered all my Earth Fare booty I’d gathered the night before, packed our bags and got to work putting together a meal for the road. Less convenient, sure, but it really wasn’t that much of a bother.

I put sandwiches, nectarine slices and avocado oil chips in a cake pan with a lid for the chicks to share in the backseat. Then I made Southwest Quinoa burgers, and leftover warm cabbage slaw with crispy tofu for Hank and me. The burgers were just OK. They had whole lentils in them, which gave me some texture issues. I gagged a few times. No actual vomit, so don’t worry, everyone. Not my favorite meal, but it did the job. I find that the quinoa and lentils fill me up a lot faster than the meals I used to make. But forget those damn beans, man.

I couldn’t tell you much about Friday night. We pulled in after the sun went down, set up our home away from home, and I curled up and passed out to PBS Kids.

Saturday morning I got up and went for a nice 3 mile run around the campground. By nice I mean, the scenery was sightly until the sweat ran down into my eye holes rendering me completely blind. I stopped at a spot overlooking the reservoir and stretched my legs. I tried a little mindfulness, which was refreshing.

I phoned it in for breakfast and went with cereal (with almond milk) for my first meal of the day, with this bomb ass cinnamon coffee Hank picked up. He was still asleep so I took my mug outside to watch the sun finish rising. Just lovely.

Our friends arrived around 10 that morning. They have three boys, which is such a fun social experiment. Spike forgot to put underwear under her skirt at one point and we had to talk about when privates are appropriate (hardly ever). We started pulling lunch together after they set up camp. Nutella sammies for the chicks and my best invention ever for us. Get ready, because this layered creation is a thing of pure love. OK, I took a sandwich thin, opened ‘er up and, on one side, put vegetable hummus, and on the other, plain kite hill cashew cream cheese. Next, some basil pesto on top of the cream cheese. Then sliced cucumber, broccoli sprouts and mixed greens. I’m telling you it was a flavor fireworks show behind my teeth. I rounded it out with grapes and a few avocado oil chips.

Then I started pounding Summer Shandys and all was well with the world. We spent a few hours down at the beach because it was 12 thousand degrees outside, and then went back to the campsite for a water balloon fight and more beers for the grownups. Dinner was sausage and hot dogs for the others and buffalo quinoa burgers for me and the Mr.

You know what I’m finding? Good friends do things like humor you when you say you’re going to go camping but you can only eat things from the earth. Well, things from the earth and things manufactured to appear like they came from the earth … am I right? My girl brought a tasty salad (vegan approved) and some stellar trail mix. We roasted up some tiny potatoes and boom! Dinner was a wrap.

I’m a dessert junkie, so you know my ass was going to find a workaround for some s’mores. And I sure did. Dairy free chocolate (not so good) with gluten free graham crackers and vegan marshmallows. I also had vegan molasses and sugar cookies from Earth Fare and I threw a mallow on one of those molasses puppies just for kicks. I wasn’t mad at it or anything. Pretty tasty.

Sunday morning was stress-free. Mama had some vegan-friendly pancake mix, both plain and chocolate chip because you know I like my baked goods kind of dirty, with some butter-flavored coconut cream and veggie bacon. The vacon, as Hank called it, was interesting. JoJo loved it! It was kind of like the forbidden marriage of beef jerky to a dog treat. I ate a piece, but a piece was enough. The pancakes on the other hand … Gosh dang. Murdered those things. No evidence remained.

After a gorgeous, sweaty hike through the Sahara with six kids in tow, and one conversation about where babies come from, we went back to break camp, sadly. I recreated my green goodness sandwiches from the day before and wrapped them up for the road. I threw in some grapes and leftover guacamole with flax and chia chips to really get ‘er done and off we went. (I make that sound so simple, but it actually takes forever to get all that shit put away, the crap tank emptied and on our way.)

From the second we hit the driveway after a camping trip, it’s laundry and cleaning and running around like Elizabeth Shue in the last 5 minutes of Adventures in Babysitting. I’m like spraying counters with Windex and whatever just to make it look like a bunch of animals don’t live in this place. It never works. My toes just found a crayon the dog chewed up and left for me – along with 3 turds – in the front room. To be clear after rereading this, my toes didn’t find the turds, Hank did, earlier. Gross.

I had a 7-mile training run (my last long one), so I knew I needed to pull something together for dinner early so I could be pounding pavement by 7pm. I went to the freezer and pulled out a box of somosas I got from Costco. There is no picture because I ate these perfect little purses of flavor so fast, there was just no time for pleasantries. While there was also a chicken option in the variety pack, we opted for the potato and chickpea varieties, which came with a zingy little cilantro chutney that took things to the next level. I paired them with a quinoa and kale packet, also from … you guessed it, Costco. [pitter patter goes my heart]

I chugged some beet elite, and took off about 45 minutes later. I. felt. so. good. I mean, not like I could run forever good, but I really felt pretty energetic. After a typical camping trip, with all the baked goods and hot dogs and mayonnaisey salads, I could never go run 7 miles. It would have been an unthinkable task. But it wasn’t that big of a deal.

I interrogated Henry on our drive home earlier that day. I wanted to know where he was at, a week in.

“Do you notice anything?” I asked.
“I mean, I’m a bad person to ask,” he said. “I never really notice much. Like, even with Whole30.”
“Right.”
“I mean, my back hurts. Does it hurt less than usual? Maybe.”
“OK.”
“I feel like I’m eating enough, but when it’s time to eat, I’m definitely hungry. That’s probably a protein thing.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Yeah, I dunno …”

So, there ya have it. An exciting report from the hubs. I feel invigorated just by how manageable it’s been, truly. I know people think I’m blowing smoke, but it hasn’t been too terribly hard. The convenient foods are so tasty, but I find they’re mostly made of shit. I’m encouraged by how relatively simple it’s been to eliminate the shit. Here’s to the next five days and no more convenient shit. Wait, …

Wellness

Livin la Vida Vegan Day 2

September 18, 2017

Big Breakfast is every other Sunday. I’ve talked about it here before, but basically, it’s a chance for my immediate family to gather together and dip into the best damn sunny side up eggs my pops can fry up. He sweats his ass off for the sake of our gluttonous breakfast guts twice a month. But you know what doesn’t go over well at Big Breakfast? A Livin la Vida Vegan challenge.

I packed some wheat toast, with natural fruit spread from Trader Joe’s, vegan shortening spread, and hemp seeds to dress it up. There were fruit and hash browns (with hot sauce), too. There was also a healthy serving of judgement around the table this morning. Predictable but still disappointing.

I’m really honest when I say that I don’t know if this will really do anything for us.

I don’t know if my body will respond positively to cutting out animal products or it won’t or if I won’t even notice a difference. They’re all possibilities. But, let me ask you this, if someone came up to you and said, “Hey there, young woman who feels like crap and bad about herself a lot of the time, I have something that just might make you feel clear-headed and lighter and all around better. Plus! I’ll throw in a lowered risk of disease.” Then who’s the idiot? The person who gives it a go, or the person who doesn’t because it might not live up to the hype?

If food is medicine, doesn’t it make sense to play with your prescription until you feel better? Until it starts working? No one drops their cookie when a friend decides to add dark chocolate or sweet potatoes to their plate. So why is leaving some hog off of it so ridiculous?

Meats cause cancer. That’s a fact. The World Health Organization deemed bacon, along with his best friends, red meat and processed meats, like salami and pepperoni, carcinogens in 2015. That puts them in the same category as tobacco and asbestos. And your risk for cancer gets higher the more meat you consume. Seems like as good a reason as any to back away from the BLT.

I’m not the type of person who runs away from a challenge just because others don’t get it. I’m curious about the vegan diet, it’s something I want to explore, and it’s something that isn’t going to hurt to try. The criticism is a bitter side salad. And really kind of stupid.

After breakfast, Hank took the chicks up to the lake to snag one final day of summer. Meanwhile, I had just as much fun putting away a million baskets of laundry, mopping and sweeping the floors and going to three different stores to get enough meat- and dairy-free goodies to get us through the next week. If I learned anything from our first day, it’s that having easy things on hand is key. Planning ahead is going to be essential for success.

(Thoughtful aside: I ask you, brothers and sisters, what did people do before Costco?)

I had a training run on the calendar at 6, so I made an early dinner around 4. A quinoa-rice blend (Seeds of Change Organic Quinoa and Brown Rice with Garlic) with a quinoa buffalo burger on top. It was fire! Like, legit, so good. I did the patty in a cast iron skillet with a pot lid over it. It got crispy on the outside, which was a nice contrast to the soft rice.

An hour later I was running. And it was a really, really bad run. It’s hotter than Hades here and there were these tiny bugs dive bombing the pools in the corners of my eyelids. My headphones died in the middle of Keisha’s “Woman”, a badass anthem my sister-in-law introduced me to the night before and I’m entirely obsessed with 24 hours later. All I could hear now was the desperate panting of a girl who had too many pineapple ciders at a birthday party. I went 6 miles, but a mile from home I decided I just wanted to walk. I gave into my legs and let them slow to a stroll. Some battles just aren’t worth fighting. I took a swig of chocolate almond milk when I got home as a reward for lacing up the shoes at all. It’s just 2 weeks now until the half marathon. I’m ready to check that baby off … maybe for the last time.

As I sit here typing this, the girls are discussing lunch for tomorrow.

“Mama, I’m hot – cold – hot – cold – hot this week,” Spike said. “Do you get it? It’s a pattern.”
“Ah,” I said.
“What is lunch tomorrow anyway,” JoJo inquired from the sink, where’s she’s been brushing her teeth for 20 minutes.
“Popcorn chicken.”
“Oh my gosh, I love popcorn chicken. It’s basically shrimp,” JoJo explained. “I haven’t had it since first grade. Like a whole summer ago. Oh my gosh, I’m soooo excited.”

JoJo and I decide to start being pen pals. We’ll get a notebook where we can write notes back and forth and place the spiral-bound secrets under each other’s pillows every night. It will be just between us. A special treat for both.

[P.S. Someone please remind me to pick up notebooks tomorrow.]