High Sierra Topix

Not really a best one-time meal, but I often like to make a grilled cheese sandwich the first night out, accompanied by a can of beer and some tomato soup. Trader Joe's Frying Cheese makes for a really, really good grilled cheese sandwich. The first day of packing in the Sierras is always the toughest for me, what with the travel fatigue, elevation gain, altitude acclimatization, lugging a full, heavy pack; a good hearty meal and a little beer goes down very nicely.

I took my wife (girlfriend at that time) up fish creek trail to the back side of Mt. San Gorgonio in 1990. We packed in two frozen steaks, bell peppers and onions.

We stumbled on what has now become one of our favs. We call it fiesta night. Dehydrated refried beans topped with chili cheese fritos with a side of dehydrated spanish rice (sometimes just mixed together) and instant pudding for desert.
The one meal that stands out in my memory was on the first Backpacking dinner my wife and I had when we first tried backpacking. She had heart surgery in January and after her recovery, we decided to give backpacking a try. We didn't get a chance to go until Oct. We made a trip into a lake we had visited on horseback before. Well it rained and then snowed on us as we arrived at the lake and set up camp. After it let up we were able to catch a half a dozen brookies. We grilled them over a campfire after seasoning them with lemon herb and garlic. For the life of me I can't remember what we had with those fish but the weather cleared , the sun came out in time for a pretty sunset and all was well with the world. That was fifteen years ago and we're still at it.

Couple years back we fished a big portion of the kern and brought along a canister of very coarse shichimi togarishi (japenese seven spice). The trick was grinding it myself and keeping the sesame and poppy seeds very coarse. I still haven't managed to make a better trout rub. I think that takes the cake.

At California's hottest hot spring I sous vided a pork tenderloin and some french carrots. Gave it a sear on the fire to finish. It's gonna come in second as I forget to bring something like lingonberry jam to give it a little more flavor.