Double Dutch
Last weekend was a big, fun, family-filled one. Peter and Jill were in Utah for her brother's wedding, Zachary came down for his (unattended) mission reunion and to visit Lori, and we spent Sunday with the Thompsons - that's four of six Barnes kids in one place at one time for one good weekend. Peter and Jill and Lori and Zachary came over on Saturday, and after long last, once Drew got home from campus and we got some dinner in our bellies, we headed up Provo Canyon to Canyon View Park to build a fire and make some delicious dessert.
The fire part was a little more challenging than the dessert part. We arrived at a consensus that Canyon View Park suffers under an ancient Indian curse, cast as the white man forcefully removed the natives from the more beautiful parts of the west - "even fires will burn cold on this land". Curse or no curse, it's ridiculously difficult to build a warm fire in the park (see the bottom of this post for another very cold Canyon View experience). With a fire finally built (thanks to a bag of instant light charcoal...), fixing a warm dessert was much, much easier, probably because we had the right tools. Last week, we finally got the gumption to spend a $50 gift card for Bass Pro Shops that we've had for two years on a fancy, new cast iron dutch oven for our camping and canyon adventures. That gift card was so slow to burn a hole in our pockets only because there are no stores out here and spending it in Georgia would mean transporting our rather heavy purchase using a rather limited suitcase allowance. Needless to say, after a two-year wait, we were anxious to try it out. It worked like a charm, and we enjoyed some tasty apple crisp with vanilla ice cream (which, thanks to that Indian curse, stayed fully frozen).
We're still trying to figure out how exactly to clean burnt apple crisp out of our now not-so-shiny, rather sooty dutch oven without using soap. Apparently, boiling water and a new layer of oil is the key; we shall see. Either way, the dessert and the double, double date was well worth the cleaning challenge.
The fire part was a little more challenging than the dessert part. We arrived at a consensus that Canyon View Park suffers under an ancient Indian curse, cast as the white man forcefully removed the natives from the more beautiful parts of the west - "even fires will burn cold on this land". Curse or no curse, it's ridiculously difficult to build a warm fire in the park (see the bottom of this post for another very cold Canyon View experience). With a fire finally built (thanks to a bag of instant light charcoal...), fixing a warm dessert was much, much easier, probably because we had the right tools. Last week, we finally got the gumption to spend a $50 gift card for Bass Pro Shops that we've had for two years on a fancy, new cast iron dutch oven for our camping and canyon adventures. That gift card was so slow to burn a hole in our pockets only because there are no stores out here and spending it in Georgia would mean transporting our rather heavy purchase using a rather limited suitcase allowance. Needless to say, after a two-year wait, we were anxious to try it out. It worked like a charm, and we enjoyed some tasty apple crisp with vanilla ice cream (which, thanks to that Indian curse, stayed fully frozen).
We're still trying to figure out how exactly to clean burnt apple crisp out of our now not-so-shiny, rather sooty dutch oven without using soap. Apparently, boiling water and a new layer of oil is the key; we shall see. Either way, the dessert and the double, double date was well worth the cleaning challenge.
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