hiya Margot, awww, I missed those!!!

I had those bacon wrapped stuffed dates and they were like sex! And I am talking the best kind of sex that lingers long after it is gone, leaving sweet memories! Teehee!

Margot and Rog rocked our camp with all of the goodies that they would bring out randomly!

Margarita jello squares~ Totally unexpected, a lovely cool sensation going down your throat as the playa swirled around us. Sweet, tart with tiny bits of salt. Heaven! I keep remembering them and with great fondness!

I missed the icecream cones dammit!

But I had this awesome sweet and savory buffalo sausage bread, grilled on the grill of all things with butter. OMFG! Talk about yummy. And deviled eggs with crab! Fawk. My friends rawk so hard!

The only thing that I shared with camp was a fresh salad and while not nearly as exciting as Margot and Rog's delectable tidbits, it was refreshing after our camp cook served just plain meat the night before that was as disappointing as bad sex.

But we won't think about that right now.

Oh yeah and Margot & Rog also made caramel popcorn with bacon in it! They won't toot their horns but I will!!!!

Toot! Toot! Toot!

I was pretty good this year about not overpacking, and brought home very little food, nearly all of which was consumed within a couple of days or was completely shelf stable and added back into my general food stock. I'm pretty pleased with that this year, as in the past I've had a lot of wasted food on reentry.

There were two main changes for me that made this possible: a 5 day cooler and a vacuum sealer. I was able to cook up and seal all my dinners beforehands and then not have to deal with them on playa. We ate really well; thai curry, sweedish meatballs and noodles, steak, and a few other meals that I'm forgetting, and we had them all frozen and ready to go beforehands. There was no screwing around on the playa cooking complex meals, but things were still really tasty and not sad.

The 5-day cooler allowed me to keep produce surprisingly fresh out there through the whole week; on Sunday while packing up I was able to enjoy a very juicy, delicious necterine I'd bought a week before in Alturus. Stuff that was vacuum sealed or otherwise well packaged I allowed to wallow in the melt water, while stuff like fruits and vegetables I layered atop the ice (which I replenished daily). I even managed to keep three pints of ben & jerry's in an edible form, although it wound up being more drinkable than edible by the time we dug up the last one on Friday. I was also able to keep a couple of bag salads in good enough shape to use on wrap sandwiches, with deli meats 7 cheese.

I also made sure I went through at least one fruit & one vegetable, fresh or canned, per day, which really helped both mood and body. There's few things worse than complete loss of dietary fiber on the playa, unless you enjoy reading the signs inside the potties.

As coolers emptied, we used a larger one to drain meltwater into, which became a head baths. Wednesday and friday wound up being headwashing days, and the initial shock of dunking your head into icewater quickly gave way to cooled bliss for the next half hour or so. Highly recommended!

My favorite was the Thai garlic chicken I ordered and froze the day before we left. The only thing I'd do differently is to seal it in the seal-a-meal instead of a rubbermaid container. I think getting all the air out would have kept it fresher. But it was still so incredibly yummy! I also sat and ate an order of peanut sauce by myself with a spoon. No rice even. God it was good.

We ended up with about 5 million quarts of homemade chili because my roommates mom made us a bunch and I made a bunch too, using her recipe. I loved all the yummy tomatoes it had in it and it was quite good eaten cold out of the pouch. I'll definitely bring that again.

Next year, tasty bites and more ready to eat meals.