Friday, August 17, 2007

Show and Tell


(J. M. Lerma, Klecko, me)

In a week I'll be at the Minnesota State Fair kibitzing in front of the St. Agnes Bakery kitchen with our fine mayor, Mr. Coleman. Last year we talked about family recipes and I tried to link the conversation to our recently published cookbooks. Before the event Mr. Coleman's brother, another Mr. Coleman who acquires rare things for the musuem here, told me he didn't know why I was going to talk about family recipes with his brother the Mayor because not only did his brother not know how to cook, but neither had their mother--that her famous family recipe was five pounds of hamburger, fried, with cans of corn and kidney beans thrown in. "The Irish, you know," he said.

But last August I learned that Mr. Coleman the Mayor did like to cook on trail and was especially fond of grilling salmon and other fishes. And since I'm about to hit the trail in the Boundary Waters myself for a week, I thought we'd talk about camp food.

So anyone who wants to share their favorite trail recipes, I'd love it if you sent them in the comments section below. And if you'd like a chance to ask questions of the mayor and see a book editor try to act like a talk show host, we'll be in the Creative Activities building next Friday, August 24, 1 p.m., at the St. Agnes Kitchen in the corner, between the quilts and the baked goods display. And you'll have an easy chance to win a free book, too (like the terrific Canoeing with the Cree)!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

My favorite camp recipe is to clean up and go to a restaurant. I envy you the fair, though. Have some cheese curds for me and the bambino. (And speaking of baking, has someone [ahem] recently proposed a cookbook on baking for your dog?)

Night Editor said...

Too funny, elbee. And (ahem!) how do you know these things?

Sassmaster said...

I'm so coming to harass you (and the mayor) on my way to see the crop art.

My camp recipes all involve packets of things to which I just add water. But: Dry roasted peanuts + candy corn = Best. Trail Mix. Ever!

Anonymous said...

Oooh, sounds fun! Trail cooking can be fun, though we do frequently subsist on oatmeal for breakfast, PBJs for lunch and dehydrated something for dinner. Last year in the BWCA we -- and most of the credit is due my wife -- had a special dinner of cheese ravioli (dehydrated of a sort) with creamy pesto sauce (from powder) and pouched chicken. Perhaps it was just that we'd been eating the above mentioned diet for a few days, but it hit the spot in a big way.

Night Editor said...

Sass: I'll look for you. And come up with a zinger for the mayor, will ya? You could also check out the SEED QUEEN book event at the AG-HORT building on Sunday. I bought some candy corn so I'll try it out. . . .

Dharma: I've heard about this Sweet Sue's canned chicken so I'm hoping to bring it up to make some chicken tacos with dehydrated corn and black beans. But ravioli sounds great!