Camping, Princess Style

[Smithy]

3 hours ago, Maison Rustique said:

Where is it that you all are ordering Gouter products? I Googled and nothing came up, aside from defining the French word.

 

This all began in the Panettone topic, where that ace enabler @Kerry Beal noted that @Alleguede had begun his annual panettone making. (Do look at that link! The photos are gorgeous!) In the subsequent posts, it came out that Goûter could now ship to the USA. @Alleguede gave an email address here ... it's info@gouter.ca in case you don't want to keep following links.

 

I read somewhere in that topic that they might all be done with panettone for the season, but i can't answer that question for sure. The shout-outs in this post should help get someone's attention for an answer.

Edited February 22 by Smithy
Edited to clarify "done for the season" as meaning "with panettone" (log)

[ElsieD]

12 hours ago, Smithy said:

 

I agree. Some fruits preserve well, but IMO strawberries don't.

True, that.  It's why when it comes to strawberry preserves, i like to make freezer jam.  It's as close to a ripe strawberry as i can get in the middle of (insert cold month here).

[ElsieD]

They currently have a strawberry and white chocolate panetonne.  John is picking one up on Wednesday and when we have some, I'll post about it on the panetonne topic.

[Smithy]

4 hours ago, rotuts said:

@Maison Rustique

 

maybe here ?

 

https://www.gouterstore.com/?page=1&limit=60&sort_by=popularity_score&sort_order=desc

 

rotuts, thank you for that link. It is the correct link...and I LOVE the "read me" that pops up first!

[SLB]

Two comments, one question:

1. In an adaptation from a recipe from "Food in Jars" lady, I preserve strawberries as follows:  a slight candy in a heavy sugar syrup with vanilla, drain thoroughly, then dehydrate.  It goes in my homemade trail mix, but is generally divine anywhere you might want a dried fruit.
2. @Smithy, I'm nervous about that dangling tag on the venetian blind behind the stove!
3. Are your darling's beloved camp skillets cast iron, or some other material?  I've decided that I'm in car camping way more than I was ten years ago.  And if I hadn't mentioned it, I'm REALLY into that griddle that you showed here some time back, it goes on top of a regular kettle grill or a fire pit.  Alas, I have no use for one, but it was so beautiful I keep wanting to give it as a gift to friends with actual houses. This has nothing to do with the skillets, I'm just sayin'.  Maybe I just really want an outdoor kitchen . . .

Meanwhile, over thisaway I'm making your darling's superburgers this week.  They seem exactly perfect, especially since I have so much sausage in the freezer right now. I'll raise a glass to this life you've lived, with gratitude for what I've gotten to learn about myself from seeing it here.  

[Smithy]

29 minutes ago, SLB said:

Two comments, one question:

1. In an adaptation from a recipe from "Food in Jars" lady, I preserve strawberries as follows:  a slight candy in a heavy sugar syrup with vanilla, drain thoroughly, then dehydrate.  It goes in my homemade trail mix, but is generally divine anywhere you might want a dried fruit.
2. @Smithy, I'm nervous about that dangling tag on the venetian blind behind the stove!
3. Are your darling's beloved camp skillets cast iron, or some other material?  I've decided that I'm in car camping way more than I was ten years ago.  And if I hadn't mentioned it, I'm REALLY into that griddle that you showed here some time back, it goes on top of a regular kettle grill or a fire pit.  Alas, I have no use for one, but it was so beautiful I keep wanting to give it as a gift to friends with actual houses. This has nothing to do with the skillets, I'm just sayin'.  Maybe I just really want an outdoor kitchen . . .

Meanwhile, over thisaway I'm making your darling's superburgers this week.  They seem exactly perfect, especially since I have so much sausage in the freezer right now. I'll raise a glass to this life you've lived, with gratitude for what I've gotten to learn about myself from seeing it here.  

• Thanks for the tip on the strawberries. 
• LOL I'm one of those people who rarely, if ever, even removes the mattress tags that say not to remove them on pain of death, unless you're the purchaser! But you raise a good point. So just for you, and because it really is sensible, I removed the tag(s) just now. This is what I removed:

 

I think the likelihood of a tag catching fire is greater than the likelihood of having a child climb up onto the stove in this particular trailer. Thanks for that safety note. 🙂

 

• My darling strongly preferred nonstick, heavy-duty aluminum pans with long handles. I left those behind, not thinking I was likely to use them due to their size, and also because the packing job was so overwhelming. This skillet is the closest thing I have to what he liked to use:

 

It's a couple of inches smaller in diameter than his favorite skillet. You can see that it's been thoroughly used since I bought it over 10 years ago, but for all that I liked to keep it inside to prevent soot buildup on the outside. His skillets have soot buildup as a badge of honor.

 

As for the cast iron griddle: I thought about bringing that along, but didn't. Again, I'm not sure now whether it was One More Thing that I couldn't figure out where to put it, or it was too grody from being neglected in the weather. Instead, I brought 2 cast iron skillets, one smooth and one not:

 

 

From a space- and weight-saving perspective I'm not sure it made sense, but I wanted both surfaces. I haven't mentioned until now that I also left behind my beloved $8 panini press, and I wanted something that could put grill marks onto certain foods. The smooth one is a family heirloom. Will I use them both? Time will tell. How badly will I miss that panini press? Time will also tell on that.

 

I'm glad you like the griddle so much. It really has been handy, and I suspect many new couples will appreciate the gift.

 

Finally: thank you so much for the comment about his Superburgers, and for hoisting a glass in our honor. Maybe I'll cook another of those tonight, and we can figuratively toast him as well as each other's travels and life lessons.

[Maison Rustique]

Thank you for the Gouter link. Am I missing a place to see shipping info or are the goods only available for pick up in Canada?

[ElsieD]

18 hours ago, SLB said:

 I preserve strawberries as follows:  a slight candy in a heavy sugar syrup with vanilla, drain thoroughly, then dehydrate.  

 

Can you post a few more details on how you do this?  I'd like to try it when local strawberries become available.

[SLB]

4 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Can you post a few more details on how you do this?  I'd like to try it when local strawberries become available.

 

The strawberries are done this way, up through Step 4 on the actual recipe:  

 

https://foodinjars.com/recipe/urban-preserving-small-batch-strawberry-vanilla-jam/

 

I put them in the pan, slowly melt the sugar, and cook until the strawberries are soft.  Then drain, sometimes for days.

 

Then into the dehydrator.  

 

The leftover syrup is great in cocktails.  Also? I have been known to leave it in the fridge for a year and then use it again to simmer/candy the new strawberries.  Possibly this is gross.  

Edited February 23 by SLB (log)

[Smithy]

Yesterday was a day of finishing business, and taking my leave of the place. I visited favorite places one last time for the nonce, 

 

 

cleaned the trailer, admired the scenery, and placed some of my darling's ashes with trees we'd particularly admired for their character and strength over challenging decades.

 

 

 

(No, I didn't leave the box.)

 

As the afternoon came on I built one last campfire for this stay, and realized that rancid cooking oil IS a good fire-starter but kicks up a lot of black smoke as it burns. I should have remembered that.

 

 

I admired the sunset and realized I'd just missed a rocket launch from Vandenburg,

 

 

then sat by the fire and felt sorry for myself until it was time to cook. Yes, my memories are happy ones, but how I miss my darling! 

 

 

 

I cooked another of my darling's Superburgers in Papa's pan. It really is the perfect fire-cooking implement for something like this. My grandmother used to call it her egg pan, or maybe omelet pan although I don't recall ever seeing her make an omelet of any sort. I don't know how old the pan is, but it used to be the standard cooking implement for camping trips Dad and his father (Papa to me) took for hunting and fishing. When Dad gave me the pan, he told me that after they returned from one trip Nana took the pan and scrubbed it clean for them. Papa was furious! So I guess carbon is a badge of honor for the pan too. Papa would be proud to see me using it. Maybe he is.

 

I sat by the fire and watched the stars and reminisced until the burger started to sizzle. I turned the pan over and waited until the burger sizzled again. Then, inside I came. 

 

 

Dinner was a Superburger, green salad, and (a bit too much) wine.

 

 

This morning I broke camp, leaving only our campfire arrangement and some wood,

 

 

...ate the last of my wonderful smoked salmon pate,

 

 

and headed out.

 

 

It felt strangely like a leave-taking, as though I may not be back. I think I'm coming back, although it may not be in the few weeks I was expecting. But if I don't make it back here, I'll have finished what I needed to do. I've moved into Yuma now, at a friend's house, where I can leave the trailer and cats. I'm going to San Diego with the dog, to visit my best friends for a week.

 

It couldn't be more different here!

 

 

But I'll admit that it's nice to be plugged into 50A electrical service. I have a microwave oven! I have air conditioning! (Yes, I needed it today.)

 

I plan to be in Yuma for much of March, once I get back from San Diego, so I should be able to take you on a bit of a culinary tour here. I just finished a giant dinner salad -- it looked a lot like last night's. Time to pack up, clean up, and get ready for tomorrow's adventures.

 

 

[curls]

@Smithy thank you for sharing these moments with us; this is a bittersweet trip. <hugs>

Wishing you all the best.

[Shelby]

11 hours ago, Smithy said:

and (a bit too much) wine.

NO such thing!

 

(((hugs)))

[ElsieD]

This must be a very emotional trip for you; thank you for taking us along.  I say, have all the wine you want!

[ElsieD]

On 2/23/2025 at 8:14 AM, Maison Rustique said:

Thank you for the Gouter link. Am I missing a place to see shipping info or are the goods only available for pick up in Canada?

I know some non-Canadians here on eGullet have ordered from them.  Try sending them a note at info@gouter.ca. They are quick to respond and wonderful to deal with.

[Smithy]

I'm back from San Diego, where I had excellent meals and a couple of feasts. The Returning Peace Corps Volunteers of San Diego had their annual "Taste the World" event, and we ate ourselves silly sampling foods even though each serving was small. I especially liked a Peruvian Aji de Gallina (a spicy chicken stew) and was fortunate enough to get the recipe from the chef, so you may see it appear in these pages at some point. I also particularly liked a Mexican lime soup -- tart, tangy, delicious, with "add your own" cilantro and fried tortilla strips. That chef hasn't responded to my request for a recipe, at least not yet. When I Google the dish "Sopa de Lima" I find several different versions, so I hope I don't have to start trying to reproduce that particular soup without some guidance. But hey, I'll try if I have to!

 

On another day we met up with friends at a little family-owned Italian restaurant, Cafe Luna. The sign at their door asked people to please keep their phones off, and I took that to mean I shouldn't be taking photos. Besides, the conversation was too brisk. But we all had variations on the soup and salad theme, where the soup was Italian Wedding soup. (Finally, I got to try it! Delicious!) The bread was fabulous, and they had a house-made dipping sauce that they called either Celestial Sauce or Celestrial Sauce. We practically went after that stuff with a spoon: it was unctuous, savory, tomatoey, slightly spicy. I can't remember whether the proprietor or her husband or father-in-law made up the recipe in the first place, but it's clearly a hit. The proprietor, who's in her 10th year of ownership now, was happy to list the ingredients. I didn't ask her for proportions. I foresee many happy experiments. The ingredients are olive oil, sundried tomatoes, anchovies, parmesan, roasted garlic, canola oil, salt and pepper, and Herbes de Provence. She said the canola is needed to keep the stuff from getting too thick. The sauce is blended but still has a slight chunkiness: not as smooth as catsup, not a coarse as salsa. 

 

If you're ever in the northern end of San Diego, go check out Cafe Luna. I hope to go there again, many times. 

Edited yesterday at 04:33 AM by Smithy
Removed duplicate phrase; corrected spelling errors (log)

[Smithy]

Yesterday I decided it was time to tackle one of the sausages I'd bought last summer in Luck, Wisconsin. I showed it to you before: it's one long coil, and when I realized that I hadn't taken time to thaw, much less cut it, I put it back in the freezer a couple of weeks ago.

 

 

I had no clear memory of the seasonings. I remember liking it when I'd been fed it in a cafeteria, and that's why I'd picked up a couple of packages before leaving the area and coming home. But what to do with it?

 

I chose a simple enough approach: uncoil it slightly; pack the interspaces with wedges of potato and onion; drizzle with a bit of olive oil and some dried herbs; cook at about 425F until done.

 

 

By golly, it worked. I'd been afraid that the little sheet pan, which is the largest sheet pan in this trailer, would be too small. There may have been a bit of drippage onto the oven floor (my new, clean oven! *sob*) but the little pan did well.

 

Dinner last night:

 

(The corn was a nod to health, as well as whittling down the supply of frozen corn. My darling loved it. I dislike it almost as much as @liuzhou does, and am looking forward to the day I get shut of all the stuff.)

 

it's a lot of meat. There were leftovers. Tonight's dinner involved some of them:

 

 

There's still some left. It's good, but maybe I'll let the rest sit for a day or two before finishing it.

 

Oh, and I think the predominant flavor of that Danish brand sausage is salt! The label simply lists salt, sugar and spices, but I can't detect any distinctive herbs or spices: no fennel or sage, for instance. It shall remain a mystery to me.

[liuzhou]

8 minutes ago, Smithy said:

it's one long coil, and when I realized that I hadn't taken time to thaw, much less cut it, I put it back in the freezer a couple of weeks ago.

 

Visually, it resembles a traditional Cumberland sausage but the description you give sounds nowhere close. How disappointing.

 

On the yellow peril, I shall remain silent. 

 

 

[Maison Rustique]

Wish I could poof myself to San Diego. I am so over winter!! Thanks for sharing the sauce ingredients. I shall try it--sounds like something I could eat with anything!

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

 

Yesterday I decided it was time to tackle one of the sausages I'd bought last summer in Luck, Wisconsin. I showed it to you before: it's one long coil, and when I realized that I hadn't taken time to thaw, much less cut it, I put it back in the freezer a couple of weeks ago.

 

That looks very much like some of the sausages we bought at Barnesville Grocery in Barnesville MN a couple of years ago. The grocery makes all the sausages, and they were definitely worth eating. Some sausages were standard long tubes but others were coiled like yours. All were sold frozen, of course--it's a small town and a small store, and I'm betting they made large batches of all their sausages that then had to be frozen. One interesting one was a potato sausage, which we gave to friends. Don't recall if they had some comments about it. (I think we gave that one to them because we were pretty much out of freezer space. It's a little fridge after all, and we try to reserve space for important things like ice cream.)

[Smithy]

I've spent the morning in a futile effort to find a mobile RV service that will come pump my holding tanks. There's a sewer hookup here, but it's so far from the trailer that I'll have to go buy (a lot of) extra hose to reach it. That means there will be (a lot of) extra hose to clean, rinse and store. But the alternative seems to be to take the trailer to a trailer dump. My darling and I used to do that periodically, at our desert camping spot. I'd rather expected I could avoid it given my current location. So it goes.

 

While I make phone calls and rest between chores, I'm having a sandwich....

 

 

This would definitely be better grilled, and I do wish I'd packed the panini press. That said, there's nothing but sheer laziness to stop me from pulling out a pan and cooking it on a stovetop.

 

The sandwich involves my usual favorite sourdough bread. However, I have other choices now thanks to my San Diego trip.

 

 

I've sliced into the Kalamata loaf already. It has a lovely flavor and open crumb.

 

 

I probably should put both of these loaves into the freezer, given the slow rate at which I eat bread these days. So far, they're out on the counter in their bags.

 

 

 

 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Those look like quite decent breads!    IMHO, you can't buy good bread in NorCal once you get 15 miles from the coast.    Don't know why because I certainly think there is a market for it.    What we find is either fluffy or leaden.   Or like porridge of nursery rhyme, "9 days old".

[Margaret Pilgrim]

For early supper tonight, channeling Smithy, I enjoyed a pan-grilled dill havati on dill rye with kosher pickle slices and strong Dijon (+ short glass of chardonnay).    Superb.

Keep it up, Smithy.    Looking forward to aping your impromptu meals.

[Smithy]

3 hours ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

For early supper tonight, channeling Smithy, I enjoyed a pan-grilled dill havati on dill rye with kosher pickle slices and strong Dijon (+ short glass of chardonnay).    Superb.

Keep it up, Smithy.    Looking forward to aping your impromptu meals.

 

Thank you for your kind words. 🙂

 

You may be less impressed with tonight's dinner. Some background: this afternoon I only ate half the sandwich I showed above. I stopped and put the remainder away because I was full, and feeling sluggish, but knew I needed to get going with the afternoon errands. I had a pickup load of laundry to wash, some trailer equipment to buy, and groceries to buy as well. The first Wednesday of the month is Old Farts Day (10% discount for seniors! Woo-hoo!) at Fry's so of course I had to shop. I actually did pretty well on sticking to the shopping list. There's still no need for me to buy meat.

 

Except...

 

By the time the errands and laundry were done, and I was at the grocery store, hunger was gnawing away. I'd suspected that would happen, and have been wanting a rotisserie chicken, so I think my hindbrain was planning on it. Besides, I have plans for that chicken (see: Aji de Gallina, above) but there are other possibilities as well. Tacos. Chicken salad. Chicken sandwiches. I love chicken. For some odd reason, I don't seem to have any in this well-stocked freezer. 

 

But I was getting HUNGRY.

 

 

This particular Fry's doesn't carry rotisserie chicken! This is the same Fry's with the (IMO) substandard fried chicken. They labeled this as roasted chicken.

 

Dinner:

 

and the last, finally, of the tabbouli I made a couple of weeks ago from an old boxed mix:

 

 

(I am glad to be shut of that stuff.)

 

A nice sunset walk.

 

 

For the time being, I've traded mostly-silence, the occasional coyote, and brilliant stars for mockingbirds, cactus wrens, orange blossoms (and other flowers), nonstop barking dogs and convenience. I'm not sure I like the trade although the blooming citrus is marvelous.

 

I'll give a bit of a tour of this particular Fry's in another post. I'm not impressed with their chicken.