Blue Lakes

Each year pretty much the same group of guys goes up to the sierras to do guy stuff, but mostly fish. This was the first year that I remember my brother not making it and frankly it was a different event without him. But all-in-all you can't go wrong sitting in a pretty comfortable chair with the pole secured and your line in the water. Usually there is massive quantities of beer consumed, stories told. Often the campfire resembles the scene in Blazing Saddles without the cowboy hats. This is the first year in many that I have tent camped, taking the tent that Theresa used at Girl Scout camp, it turned out to be shorter than I imagined, so I stayed in the same tent as Pieter. Having a bear visit the campsite I felt pretty safe because no bear in his right-mind would have come close to our tent... again the scene from Blazing Saddles. We took a field trip to Markleeville and Grover Hot Springs where we were able to get 3 days of campfire and stink off us.

Euro-S'mores and other delights

We get so caught-up with what we've done since we were young, doing the same thing the same way that it MUST be the best way. Sometimes it is... sometimes it isn't.
My mom, shortly after getting married made some cornbread, thinking that my dad, who's family was southerners through and through (I kid you not, I have a picture of my grandmother wearing a confederate flag apron). My dad was not impressed, I would assume he said it was OK, but I know he didn't like it because it wasn't like his mom's cornbread. My mom called up her mother-in-law and asked for the recipe of which Grandma Zachry gave her, delighted, no doubt that her son was going to get some good southern home-cookin'. She gave the recipe as bit's of this and dabs of that, and a scoop of shortnin' , so it was a challenge to begin with but my mom's talent was persistence. Se again gave the cornbread a shot and again it didn't taste like Grandma's. So my mom decided that the only way she would get this recipe right was to WATCH Grandma make it. So they made the arrangements, went to Grandma's house to watch the process. My assumption is that in the south everything is cooked with bacon in it because when they got to the part of the recipe to put shortening in it, Grandma Z. opened the cabinet under the sink where she had several coffee cans of bacon drippings, she grabbed one and took a wooden spoon and etched out scoop like you would Ice cream ready to go in a cone, while she was saying "just grab a bit of shortning"... that was the "aha" moment for my mom. My whole childhood, I had THAT kind of cornbread, yummy.
When my sister was in Girl Scouts in the early 60's we learned, among other things how to make S'mores. You know the recipe, a graham cracker, broken in half, a chunk of Hershey's Chocolate and a perfectly browned marshmallow. (Unless you are my son, who counts to three before blowing out the flame). This last tuesday the family was all up at my sister's house in Camino and Anina, their exchange daughter from 8 years ago was visiting with her boyfriend and we had euro-S'mores. It's exactly the same recipe, but instead of Hershey's, we used Nutella. Nutella is a hazelnut-cocoa spread that the Europeans eat the way we eat peanut butter. Quite honestly I don't think I'll ever use Hershey's in S'mores again. It was delicious!.
So don't be afraid to try something different when you step into the kitchen or when you're out at the campfire.