Pure pleasure awaits

1 more sleep until we leave for a week of adventure sans modern conveniences. I've spent the whole summer looking forward to breathing in the ocean air, learning to surf and going kayaking but I find myself oddly excited about all of the food I am going to cook. After much debate we decided to go roughing it style and we are tent camping and cooking over a good old fashioned fire. Originally I was planning on using my coleman stove but then I started perusing google (always dangerous) and the next thing I knew I was buying a dutch oven and planning baked beans, and stews and vegetable pot pie in my new "contraption". It sounds strange to say, but I am fascinated with this lovely old pot. Its thick black walls and sturdy lid seem to beg to be thrown on top of hot coals. Did you know you can bake bread, biscuits and cornbread in a dutch oven in addition to the usual stew with dumplings, baked beans and vegetable pot pie? I didn't. And don't even get me started on the joy of foil pack cooking - bananas with chocolate and marshmallows, salmon, vegetables, potatoes, breakfast birds nests (sausage patties topped with shredded potatoes, with an egg in the nest and topped with cheese), orange shells filled with biscuit dough mixed with raisins and cinnamon sugar - are just a few of the things that will be covered with foil and thrown in my fire. I also found a recipe for campfire donuts where you twist biscuit dough around a stick and hold it over the fire, dipping the toasted dough in melted butter and cinnamon sugar afterwards...YUM! And oh, percolated coffee on a cold camping morning with sizzling bacon and thick multigrain pancakes - I can't wait! I'll be sure to pick up some fresh seafood for meals a few times and there is a lovely bakery in town that I am itching to buy some bread from. Yes, I plan to eat well. I'd better plan a lot of strenuous exercise if I am going to eat like this every day!