Carbohydrate Couple

This Friday, my wife Betsy and I are going to the greater Utica, NY area. She is in a 15K run called the Boilermaker, which takes place in and around Utica. We will be "camping" in our new old van and cooking over fire on Friday and Saturday evening at a campground near a mountain stream. Conveniences include fire ring, water spigot, picnic table, and shower nearby at $15 a night.

I'm not much for tents or sleeping on the ground. So van sleeping has proved to make camping seem all the more palatable. I bought two 1/2-inch thick exercise pads (24x72 and resilient) and a queen size foam mattress pad to top those off. This sleeping concoction will sit in the rear of the van, seats removed, over the carpeted (and fairly padded) floor. All that is left to find is a good mosquito net, because open windows is a must.

For dinner on Friday, before we settle in, we'll head to the local market to buy some meat for barbecuing. On Saturday, my wife wants to stick by the tradition of having pasta before a long run. I wouldn't disagree, I love pasta. She suggested fried and I was in love all over again.

Rewind. It's 1974, Hither Hills State Park, near Montauk, NY. The family is on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic. There are picnic tables, and a fire box (cement block with iron grate). Grandpa is boiling water and heating sauce over the coals. This was barbecue -pasta and meat sauce. After, came the perc coffee on the old coals, at nightfall, while kids chilled by sunburn and ocean breezes sat wrapped in blankets sticky with beach sand.

Fast forward. Wait. I don't think we'll go that far. We'll make pasta at home and cart it up in the cooler. We'll bring the cast iron skillet, xv olive oil, the pecorino. Start up the fire and fry pasta in the cool air of a mountain woods' evening. Yep. My grandparents are long gone, but they would be proud.