Glamorous: you're doing it wrong

This is a photo of our Tear Drop kitchen. My beloved and I love to camp and we are lucky enough to be about an hour from the beautiful blue Pacific ocean and have the means to sneak away for a day or three. If you are retired, why not? Plus for a few days I have a "Million Dollar View" of the ocean.

The teardrop is a 1947 Kitt Manufactured model but the last owner redid all the cabinets. They are quite fancy. My husband put in the stainless counter because there are always spill and the wood wasn't practical. The color is original but, if we ever have some down time, it will get painted the same color as our pulling vehicle, our '51 Chevy truck; green and black. We draw a crowd each time we pull into a campground but tours are easy to give. Yes, we sleep inside, notice the small door on the right.

Let me give a tour of our kitchen. On the right is a two burner propane stove which doubles as a water heater. On the left is a small bar sink and in one of the cabinets behind is a five-gallon water jug which feeds the sink faucet. When I'm cooking I try to keep a large kettle going for hot water to clean up.

The drawers under the counter hold everything I need and somethings I wonder why I brought but that's what happens with drawers. It's very compact and efficient. We do bring along a small gas BBQ because you just can't make toast on the stove, though I've tried for years and finally gave up.

We've had some pretty plain meals and a few fancy ones. Last trip, while our camping neighbors were eating cold hot dogs for dinner, I fixed grilled chicken and salmon, rice and a nice avocado salad. It's all in your prep at home. Our breakfasts are usually the plain meals since eggs are a pain to clean up. When you have a small dishpan for washing pans you are quite careful with what you cook.

Here's a tip for outdoor cooks. While shopping in a little town close by, Carpenteria, we stopped at our favorite bakery/deli Reynoldo's and purchased two fresh tamales for dinner. When we got back to camp I was trying to think of a way to heat them for our dinner. I usually only travel with a couple of pans and no steamer. All I did was crumple a large sheet of heavy duty foil and put it in my large kettle, then filled the kettle half full of water. I placed the tamales on top of the foil, put the lid on, and simmered those darlings to perfection. Now that was a yummy supper.

So, why would I do this? For this "Million Dollar View" of course. Wouldn't you?