We hadn't even broken a sweat, hadn't done enough to really work off the big breakfast we'd had before hitting the trail that morning.
Sure, we'd walked a few miles, through woods deep with snow. But we were at our campsite by mid-morning, had the tent set up by late morning, the fire going by noon. The heavy lifting done, we'd napped a while before shoving off mid-afternoon, during the warmest part of the day—a balmy 12 degrees—for a short hike to a nearby brook for a pail of fresh water and to see whether a trout or two might be teased from an open pool with my favorite lure.
Now, back at camp, we heated water for our evening meal. On the menu: two bags of freeze-dried chicken teriyaki and rice, a tin of sardines, hot dogs, a can of baked beans, a few pieces of reheated steak left over from the previous evening's meal (cooked and consumed indoors) and a big bag of freeze-dried chocolate mousse.
As a veteran of many camping trips, I can attest that freeze-dried food is about the least appetizing fare available, virtually unpalatable in all but the most extreme circumstances. In fact, freeze-dried food is strictly forbidden on our spring, summer or fall trips. But come winter, when packs are full of extra clothing, winter-weight sleeping bags, back up cooking stoves and spare canisters of fuel, the thought of carrying in heavy tubs of marinated steak tips and boxes of pasta and fresh fruits and vegetables compels us to put survival well ahead of dining pleasure.
As my buddy John worked the grill, I poured boiling water into the bags of freeze-dried delicacies. It must have been the smell of warm food in the clean, frigid air, but suddenly I was famished. My buddies and I, huddled around the fire, ate heartily as dark enveloped our campsite.
"Delicious, huh?" John said between mouthfuls of unevenly cooked and still somewhat crunchy freeze-dried teriyaki, a look of wonder on his face. "I could eat this all the time, couldn't you guys?"
The ensuing laughter said it all: delicious is a matter of perspective.
*
Taking the lessons learned from many winter camping trips over the years, I have become devoted to outdoor grilling and other al fresco cooking and dining experiences that are easy and fun to do on just about any winter weekend. The little bit of extra work it takes to shovel the snow around the outdoor grill, to keep a pile of dry wood under cover for the occasional bonfire, to get my family hip to the idea of piling on a few extra layers and leaving a perfectly warm, dry house to eat supper in the backyard, are all worth it. If hot dogs on the grill make a passable meal midsummer, they seem like downright gourmet fare when the world is caked in snow and ice.
Many nights, our supper is only cooked outside, but eaten at our dining room table. I'll fire up the gas grill to cook a steak or a pork loin, not because it will taste appreciably better than if I'd cooked it inside, but because I find it much more pleasant to be outside, cooking in the fresh air, enjoying the warm, sensual aroma of roasting meats, feeling my appetite growing in a very primal way.
At this time of year, as January gives way to February and the days grow longer, we're apt to do something we used to do only in the warm weather: pull out an old folding table and chairs and put on an outdoor feast. Unlike my winter camping trips, we don't rely on freeze-dried fare—except for the chocolate mousse, which my daughter loves—but we do insist that all the cooking gets done outside. To cheat by, say, boiling pasta on the stove in the house might be easier, might yield better results, but that's not the point. The point is adventure, a change of pace, a heightening of our appreciation for a good, warm meal.
Of course, cooking a big meal outside on an open fire or a gas grill or any of a number of camp stoves—on several occasions, I've used all three heat sources in tandem—is a lot of work. And not every family is eccentric enough to move the kitchen and dining room into the back yard just to satisfy a desire to gulp a big lungful of cold, fresh air between bites of lobster bisque. But there are far less laborious ways to treat your senses to the sharp contrasts of an outdoor dining experience—ways that won't necessarily leave your neighbors scratching their heads.
Our winter outdoor meals, in fact, grew out of a fairly commonplace habit of making hot chocolate and popcorn after returning from an afternoon out skiing or sledding or ice skating. We'd lumber back from our outdoor adventures, stomp our boots clean of snow, shed our winter coats, hats and mittens and pile into the kitchen for a warm up. By the time the hot chocolate was ready, we were generally feeling overheated and drowsy. Torn between heading back outdoors to revive ourselves and settling onto the couch for the remainder of the day, we began to see our hot chocolate-and-popcorn ritual as a surprisingly unpleasant interruption to our good times.
My daughter, for whom we'd started the ritual in the first place, eventually solved the problem.Dragging her sled to the back door after an outing one day, she plopped into a snow drift and announced, "I'll stay here. Please bring me a cup of hot chocolate when it's ready. And don't forget the marshmallows."
Never one to overlook a stroke of genius, my wife plopped down next to her.
As I was preparing their snack, it occurred to me that I didn't have to be trapped in a warm house, but could simply fire up the wood stove I keep in my otherwise unheated workshop—I use the stove just to take the edge off the cold when working—and make the hot chocolate and popcorn there. It has since become a family tradition, one that gave my wife and me a reason to show our daughter a product—Jiffy Pop popcorn—we used in the good old days before people started making popcorn in microwave ovens. I still use the old woodstove on occasion, but more often, I boil water and pop popcorn on the gas grill in the back yard while family and friends sit in the snow and wait.
For many people, winter is a dreary season. Being of a different mind, I've long proselytized the virtue and value of getting outside in winter as a way to fight seasonal depression and avoid cabin fever. Rarely do I have much success changing minds.But I get lucky once in a while. A few years ago, a friend dropped by during one of our backyard feasts. I greeted him at the front door, said how happy I was to see him and remarked that it sure was a nice day outside.
"Then let's keep it outside," he muttered, glancing dyspeptically at the snow falling in thick, downy flakes.
An hour later, with a pint of stout in one hand and a barbecued chicken drumstick in the other, he radiated renewed vitality.
"As you know," he told me as I whittled some sticks for toasting marshmallows on the fire, "I'm not one for winter. But I could get used to this."
As I told him, that's easy enough to do.
