First night supper is always fresh fancy meat, fire roasted potatoes and corn on the cob. We always have fresh stuff that will spoil for the first few days of the trip, and then as we run out of the fresh stuff, we switch over to preserved foods.
In a plastic bin, Mom had placed 6 large frozen steaks which were had been thawing and marinating in a special mixture all day since she packed up the car last night while the rest of us slept.
Mom’s Steak Marinade:
- 1 cup Olive Oil
- ½ cup Soy Sauce
- 1 Tablespoon Salt
- 1 Tablespoon Pepper
- ½ cup Lemon Juice
- ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
- 6 Tablespoons Basil
- 3 Tablespoons Parsley
- 10 whole Garlic cloves
- Use a blender stick to whip it up for half a minute.
- Pour a bit of the sauce to cover the bottom of a clean, food grade, sealable plastic bin.
- Place frozen steaks on the sauce, then pour more sauce on top of those steaks. Place more steaks on top, then pour more the rest of the sauce on top. Make sure every steak is fully covered in the sauce. Seal up the bin, and pack it into the car late in the night before leaving on the camping trip. It will be thawed in time for tomorrow’s first supper at camp.
Mom carried the plastic bin of steaks to Dad, we were practically drooling as we watched. Dad thanked her and began to place the meat on the grill he had made that rested just above the fire. Mom poured the rest of the marinade on top of the steaks, then carried the plastic bin to the picnic table to wash it out. Now it was going to become the bin in which we would wash our dishes.
Next came the baked potatoes. Yesterday Mom had washed each potato and coated them with butter, sprinkled them with salt, and then wrapped them in foil. There was a whole potato for each of us, which Dad placed directly on the coals.
Finally came the corn on the cob. Dad just placed the six ears of corn along the outside of the fire, rotating them from time to time.
As the meal cooked, Mom took us to the showers to clean the days dirt away and change into our warm, fleecy pajamas – which were actually only track pants and a hoody. I was a little miffed, because I had planned to be the only one showering so I could clean up supper while everyone else showered. I realized that gathering the supplies I wanted without being noticed was going to be more difficult than I had hoped. We weren’t supposed to get at the pre-wrapped granola bars until after the granola cereal was finished, but I wanted to sneak a few for my adventure tomorrow.
Returning the camp, we sat around the fire talking excitedly about our plans for that holiday. I carefully did not mention my super-secret plans to explore that island alone. I knew someone would try to stop me if they knew, or someone would ruin it for me, I glared at my sister, knowing that if I entrusted my plans to her, she would probably tell on me.
The meat was finished first, so we all sat at the table and enjoyed our steaks while they were hot. Except for Dad, he ate his at the fire while he rotated the corn and potatoes in a rhythm that only he understood. Even though Mom had bought small steaks for the kids and bigger ones for the parents, I couldn’t finish it all – so Dad finished mine for me.
After he finished gobbling up his steak, Mom asked Joey to go and fill the large kettle with water from the spigot and bring it to Dad, who set it in the fire to heat up. Later that night, for dessert we planned to drink hot chocolate and roast marshmallows around the fire.
Next, the corn was ready. Sam held out a tray so Dad could carefully shuck each ear of corn and then carefully place them on the tray as soon as they were ready. Everything he stripped off the corn went back on the fire. He left the fire for a moment then, so he could join all of us in slathering our corn cobs with butter and then sprinkling salt on top. He returned to the fire to eat it.
When the potatoes were cooked, the wrappings around the potatoes had to be squeezed tightly and placed in the little garbage bag. Foil doesn’t burn, so it must be disposed of properly. Dad joined us at the table for this final part of the meal. The potatoes tasted so good! Drowning in more butter, with more salt and pepper sprinkled on top, what a FEAST! I looked around the table at the faces of my family. All of us were enjoying the food and all of our faces had butter dripping down our chins.
After we finished, Dad went to the fire to check the progress of the heating water. He adjusted the coals a bit and then announced that he would go take his shower and get his pajamas on. That meant it was time for the rest of us to clean up the supper dishes and set out whatever was needed for the hot chocolate and marshmallows that were coming up next. I made sure I was the one tasked with going to the car to get those things, I then smoothly grabbed an apple, a carrot, one of my water bottles and two granola bars and stashed them in the kangaroo pocket of my hoodie. I carried mugs, spoons, hot chocolate mix and marshmallows to a clean area of the table, trying to position my self to hide the bulge in my pocket from the others. Then I snuck over to my backpack by the hammocks to unload my stolen supplies into it, holding my breath the whole time. Luckily, no one noticed me do it! I quickly jumped into one of the hammocks with my book and waited for someone to call out to me and put me back to work.
As it happened, the work was quickly finished without anyone calling me back to work, but I got up out of the hammock to help everyone as we started putting things away for the night and getting everything ready for bedtime. The mugs would stay out and dirty until morning, but the food items would get locked away in the car for the night. We needed to light a candle and find our flashlights before it got dark. Dad returned from his shower, added another log to the fire, and walked around securing the site for nighttime. We wanted valuables and food items and even the trash to be locked in the car, safe from mice, racoons or stealthy people. No one knew that I was the stealthiest of all! I glanced towards my hidden backpack; it was all ready for my adventure the next day.
Finally, the water was hot enough to make hot chocolate. We each found our mugs and carefully poured steaming water over our hot chocolate powder. Sam liked to have a lot of the sweet powder in his drink, but I preferred mine to be more watery. I still prefer it that way, to this day. We popped a few marshmallows on top, and then sat around the fire to carefully sip the hot chocolate and toast some more marshmallows.
Sadly, when Joey’s first marshmallow was almost perfectly toasted, it dropped off his stick and into the fire. By that time Marianne was already on her second marshmallow, her approach was to set them on fire, letting the marshmallow at the end of her stick burn like a torch. Then she blew it out and ate the black skin first. It went nice and fast, but whenever Mom or Dad caught her holding it out like a torch, she’d get in trouble for playing dangerously with fire. They were right, the way the blazing marshmallow sometimes dripped off the stick in fiery globs, it clearly was dangerous.
We laughed and chatted and had fun together until our mugs were empty and we had eaten plenty of marshmallows. Sam began to drift off in his seat, so Mom revived him by announcing that it was time for one more bathroom break, and then off to bed. Groaning, but tired, we all got up to do it. At this time of night, the electric washrooms were empty of other campers, but active with bugs flying around the brightest lights in the area. There were puddles on the floors leftover from the showers, accidents and drippy hair of other campers, but only our family was in the station right then. It was beginning to feel cold outside, and the thought of our cozy sleep space was a comforting one.
Laying together in bed, Mom laid between us, positioned so that she could hug us all and began to tell this year’s story. Dad would guard the fire until the last ember blinked out, and Mom would either fall asleep with us or go outside to sit alone with him for a while after we had all fallen asleep. The last thing I remember hearing about the story was that a couple of friends were sitting together on their school bus on their way to a field trip with their class to the Science Museum. My mind wandered, I knew that Mom would come up with some kind of magical adventure, and my mind created my own adventure in my dreams as I slept.