The Harbinger

We’re talking MEAT, baybees!!! Wrapped in aluminum. Chicken meat. Which isn’t REAL meat any more than pork is real meat; unless both have been fried. But I was camping.

Here’s what I bought/brought:

Three chicken breasts, boneless/skinless
Broccoli flourettes (that the store packages because it’s getting old)
4 pieces of corn on the cob
Baby Bellas, sliced - one box
18 eggs
2 filet mignons
2 pork chops that were BEAUTIFULLY 1.5″ thick *eyeroll*
3 Pre-formed and seasoned hamburgers
Pkt hot dogs
Pkt Bacon
Shredded Cheddar (2 cup size)
Mayo
Ketchup
Burger Buns
Dog Buns
Loaf Bread
Box pork stuffing
2 boxes Kraft Mac & Cheese
Assorted other crap I used to think were staples (a la RV)

HERE’S what REALLY happened:

Breakfast Saturday: Bacon and fried eggs with some warm bread (supposed to be toast). There was NOTHING wrong with this meal. Except for the fact that I cooked in on the camp stove. You know, rather than over the fire. I was … warm.

Lunch/Dinner Saturday: Burgers with baby Bella’s and leftover bacon on hamburger buns. Cooked in the aluminum pockets on the tripod grill. Exactly what we needed. I made three of them and put away one. Gotta love the ziplock! For me, copious amounts of vodka followed.

Dessert Saturday: I asked my brother and his daughters (4 and 6) to have dessert with us. Ergo the Banana Boats. I’d also brought apples to bake with butter and brown sugar. Those gooberheads didn’t even show up until 9:00 p.m. Banana Boats and baked apples were ready at 6:00 p.m. In the meantime, some neighboring campers offered us a plate of their leftover pulled pork and sausages (brats, I think - I never had one). I traded them with the baked apples, which they LOVED! An hour or so later, no brother or nieces - so I asked them if they wanted the banana boats. “What?” they said…

HA! I gave a goddamn cooking show! One of ‘em even said, “It’s like Martha Stewart!” Can one ever explain how melty I became when I was given THAT distiction? Holy MOLY!

Big hit, once again. This time they contained pecan pieces and Reeces Pieces bits (kinda like Nestle morsels). I SHOULD have sprinkled some cinnamon on ‘em, but didn’t think about it. Yes, people. I HAD cinnamon. Should’ve sprinkled the apples with it, too.

ANYHOW…

Breakfast Sunday: Well. I was SUPPOSED to make the breakfast casserole - Sausage, eggs, bread and cheese in the Dutch Oven. So, I didn’t bring the fuckin’ sausage. Kill me, bitches! Sometimes our own guilt is enough punishment… What we ended up having was dutch oven fried filet mignon and pork chops with some coddled eggs. Coddled eggs, in case you don’t know, is a BAKED egg. Some of us made sammiches and some of us just ate what we were given. It was food and it was good.

Sunday Dinner: Stew. Leftovers. CAMP STEW. I took anything that wasn’t eaten and put it in the oven for a couple of hours… There was the chicken, chunked. I cooked it up first without the top on, then added some onion, the broccoli, some ’shrooms, corn off the cob, a packet of Lipton Onion Soup mix (I call it a staple), two coffee-pots full of water, the leftover pork chops (about 1, actually - these were HUGE chops), leftover filet mignon (I never thought there’d be leftover FILET)… Hmmm, what else? OH! A gigantic piece of beef that brother’s neighbors didn’t want. They’d had what they wanted the night before, but didn’t want to friggin take it home. Go FIGURE. This was/is a meaty stew.

Camp Stew. Two day’s worth of lunches at work. It still needs salt, but I knew that because the salt at camp had gotten all … wet. Glumpy, if you will. Sorta like the garlic and/or onion powder.

We took off on Monday morning with just some snacks. Graham crackers with some Reece’s warmed over the fire (left-over firewood) and held by tongs (not me, I just had coffee).

Hey. Those hot boiled peanuts we bought on the roadside and munched on during the way home ROCKED…

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