My avid readers would have noticed that I have gone camping twice in less than a month, mind you I am not even a park ranger. The first one was a bit of a warm-up, we stayed in a neighborhood park for one night just so we are ready for this BIG one Summer Camp 2008.
You my dear readers must have thought that, hey, you must be an outdoor type because you like camping so much. Wrong, the reason is one word. Economy. Or rather the bad economy. Instead of staying in some 5-star hotel, I stayed in a $50 a night camp ground. Or even cheaper.
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Me and Alex. I like to wear my white 501 jeans. I like to wear them for a week, so they look all dirty then I wear them to camping, with all the grass stain and whatnot. I like my white jeans dirty, super dirty.
Like so many respectable New Yorkers, Alex has a propensity to wear black, already. (I totally made it up, he couldn't care less.)
Smokey Joe. Featured here was my black Smokey Joe, loaded with food. To control the temperature, you need to control the vents. There are four holes at the bottom of the kettle, and by turning the valve, you control the openings and the air intake to the kettle and hence the fire. The fire from the charcoal can indeed goes pretty fierce by simply controlling the vent. If you want to put the doom shaped cover on and want to keep the fire going strong, you should really open up the vents both at the bottom and on the lid. The draft would fan the fire big time. One of the big mistakes for beginners, other than forgetting to bring the charcoal, is they close the vent at the bottom and the vent on the lid. Without air or oxygen intake, I don't care how much lighter fluid you put on the charcoal or worse on your food, there wouldn't be any fire.
I have great success with my grilled chicken with balsamic vinegar and rosemary. I just read the title of the recipe and I made up everything. Hey, it's just cooking not rocket science. I got the boneless chicken thighs a day at Trader Joe's before the trip and marinated them overnight. It was full of flavor. Too busy grilling and eating, no pictures.
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In my book, this is the only right way to start a charcoal fire. No lighter fluid needed, and the food would taste even better. I am usually not into accessories, but I found a chimney indispensable when it comes to starting the fire. There is a perforated metal partition inside the chimney and underneath you can stick two sheets of crumpled newspaper, preferably the New York Times, front page and business section will do. Then pour charcoal briquettes into the chimney. It only takes three or five minutes to get the charcoal in total fire, wait till there is no more smoke, then pour charcoal into the grill and you are ready to barbecue. I found it very efficient.
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Camp ground with power and water hook-up. Very convenient. Harry is charging his hand-held so he can check out the Olympics and gives occasional orders to the office drones.
We went camping last weekend too. The weather was nice except the pouring rain in the mid afternoon. Well, it gave us a chance to test the new tent. :)
ReplyDeletecan you write something that's more excited, I protest here in Taipei, your writing are boring
ReplyDeleteWe got the tent from Target some time ago, I guess it stood up pretty well. Unless we are going to Himalaya, I guess it should be fine with some rain. We used it a few times. Our tent is for six, but we sleep four so it's pretty roomy. It has two fiberglass bars, one rain bar, one rain fly and a partition that we never used. It's easy to setup and take down.
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