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Sue Harrington
(All photos by Sue unless otherwise indicated) |
Sea kayakers will know that overnight ‘expedition’ paddles have a number of distinctions from our more usual day paddles. The planning, preparations and packing are much more involved, not least the provision of three interesting and wholesome meals for every day that you are to be away.
With this in mind, I thought it might be instructive and amusing to document the range of stunning dinner cuisine produced one evening by eleven hardy paddlers resting overnight at Betty’s Beach during a trip off the Albany region.
But before the chefing began, we gathered around the tray of Bob’s ute parked by a rusting beach shack, and snacked on biccies and cheese, washed down with ice cold TEDs, generously proffered by Bob. Time slipped by while amicably yarning about the paddling adventures of the previous days. Photo by Russ Hobbs
Once down to cooking the main dish, the cauldron of choice was predominantly the trusty Trangia stove, to the extent that our club could approach the company for sponsorship! Spurred on by skilled camp chefs, the Trangias fried, boiled and heated the pre-planned ingredients to produce a remarkable array of curious creations as evidenced in the photos:
Rod – savoury rice and tuna (followed by fruit tub and chocolate rice pudding);
Sue and Russ – spicy salami, rice, peas and onion – a reliable camping favourite (photo by Pel Turner);
Pel – tortellini with bacon rice (Pel seemed to go for multicultural surprises);
Adrian (our invited paddler and tour guide from Albany) – satay rice, Canadian pink salmon, peas, corn and capsicum;
Wolfgang – bami goreng in a foam cup (non-Trangia hot water involved in the complex preparation); and
Martin – Indian chickpea curry (packaged and apparently horrible!), followed by fruit cake offered around;
Kevin – curried chicken pasta (‘creamy, full-bodied and delicious, 8/10, he claimed!);
Royd – fresh courgettes, red capsicum, tuna and pasta (with the ingredients separately prepared prior to combining);
Bob – packet dhal and spicy rice, washed down with a good red;
Dave – chunky stew (brings back memories of KP’s Chum…) and homemade bread.
It would be difficult to dispute that Royd’s was the superior meal, when considering the overall freshness and complexity of ingredients, lengthy cooking time and amount of fuel used, appealing food aromas and level of interest from others.
Lessons learnt from this small survey? Fresh vegies are possible on longer trips, other people’s food can look much better or much worse than your own, and lastly, anything will do when you are hungry enough, especially if you have taken along a cask of reasonable red!