Family Camp Cooking with Emily Vikre

Transcript

Taryn Solie
Welcome to the grill like a mother podcast. Hello, Taryn Solie here. I hope you’ve got your camping hat on today because we’ve got a great interview focused on family camp cooking, that’s perfect for the upcoming camping season. Camping can be a little intimidating if you’re just starting out or maybe aren’t an experienced camper, but this episode has some really great tips, as well as some great recipe inspiration for camp cooking. So let’s get into it.

Alright, today on the podcast, we have Emily Vikre. Emily is a native Duluthian who holds a PhD in food policy and behavioral theory from Tufts University. She is co-founder and co-owner of Vikre Distillery which has been named Best Craft Spirits Distillery by USA Today. They’ve also won a slew of technical awards, a gold and five silvers at the San Francisco world spirits, competition, gold, silver, and bronze awards from the American craft distillers Association, silvers and bronze from the American Distilling Institute and two good food awards in 2018. A nationally recognized food and drinks writer, Emily is the author of Camp Cocktails, as well as a new cookbook coming out, which we’ll talk about, and has been a regular columnist for food 52, as well as written for Lucky Peach, Minnesota Public Radio and Norwegian American weekly. Emily, welcome to the podcast.

Emily Vikre
Hey, thanks for having me.

Taryn Solie
I’m so glad you’re here. And I’m really excited to dig into things. I wanted to start off talking about camping because you have now two cookbooks centered around camping. So I wanted to get into your camping background a little bit. Did you – I’m assuming you grew up camping? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Emily Vikre
Yeah, for sure. And it is so funny to me in some ways to have two camping cookbooks out because I don’t think of myself as, like, an awesome camper. And I think that’s because I grew up with like, truly expert campers. And I’m sure we’ll talk about that a little bit more, but like, you know, professional campers. And so I grew up, we moved to Duluth, where I moved back to again now, but we moved to Duluth when I was four. And it is a very outdoorsy community. And both of my parents also come from outdoorsy families. My dad was in Boy Scouts, and he was an Eagle Scout. And my mom is from Norway, which is not necessarily I mean, people camp there for sure. She didn’t grow up necessarily so much camping a lot. But one of the big values in Norway is just the friluftsliv, which means the free air life or just being outdoors and being very outdoorsy. And so it was very integrated into who we are, how we operate. And that was very much the case. So for our neighbors as well in Duluth, which is really the gateway to the Boundary Waters. One of the most amazing national parks that we have here is just miles and miles and miles of lakes that you portage and canoe and kayak and camp along. And so we wound up having all these neighbors who camping was what they did for vacation, right? They didn’t travel elsewhere, they would go either car camping, or even more often canoe camping. And so we’d go on trips with them. We’d go on trips as a family, go out west to visit family and camp along the way. So yeah, there’s a lot of camping but it was really funny because my dad’s like, super into like hardcore, austere camping, and my mom’s a little bit more like, desiring of posh camping. So there’s lots of contention as well.

Taryn Solie
Now, can you – I have not heard of canoe camping. So I’m in the Seattle area and we’re surrounded by water, but we don’t canoe a lot. So is that something where you just take your gear into the canoe?

Emily Vikre
Mmm-hmm. And so I mean, that is it’s so funny to have then moved away from Duluth and northern Minnesota and discover, oh, this is not how most people think of camping. Right? Like we met people who were backpack campers or, you know, cabin campers, which is in car campers. Totally awesome. And so what you do in the Boundary Waters, because there’s so many interconnected lakes, you bring all of your gear in these big packs that are more made for carrying in a canoe than on your back. Which means you can also carry heavier gear a little bit more like canoe car camping than like backpacking. And you load up your canoes. And so you’ll like paddle across the lake, you might portage, you know, 100 feet, 200 feet to the next lake and then put your stuff back in the canoe. Canoe across that lake, set up camp along the lake, camp there overnight, swim, cook and move on the next day or you might you know, canoe to a spot on the first day. Stay there for three days. Canoe back when you’re done.

Taryn Solie
Wow. Oh, that’s so interesting. I have never heard of.

Emily Vikre
Yeah, so it’s a really, it’s a really cool way to be outside. And the Boundary Waters of course, they’re just this like pristine, pretty magical northern wilderness area.

Taryn Solie
Oh that sounds amazing.

Emily Vikre
Where just no motorized boat traffic is allowed. It’s all canoes and kayaks.

Taryn Solie
Oh, wow. So really peaceful, quiet.

Emily Vikre
Mmm-hmmm.

Taryn Solie
Oh, that sounds amazing. Oh, my gosh, I’m so jealous. Okay. So then now you have a family of your own now. And have you taken that, like, I’m assuming you are also big camping, campers with like your husband and your kids.

Emily Vikre
Yeah, and my husband did not grow up canoe camping. Okay, he grew up out west and did more of the like backpacking or car camping. And so that’s kind of what we’ve been doing more with our boys as they get a little bit older, we’ll take them out more. But since – when I moved to the East Coast, I discovered the joy of, like car camping, or like cabin camping. Like hiking from hut to hut and staying in huts along trails and things like that. And I was like, Oh, this is sweet. Pretty into this too. And so we’ve done more of that with them, especially because our younger son was born with health issues that he’s now over pretty much and he’s four. And so you know, now we’re having bigger adventures, but it’s been, you know, this big journey of being really into like, grand adventures, and then more bite-sized adventures.

Taryn Solie
Yeah, for sure. From my experience, because I have two kids, and it’s a lot different camping, without kids than with kids.

Emily Vikre
Yes.

Taryn Solie
So what kind of adjustments did you guys have to make both with camping and also with like, the food you’re bringing in the food you’re cooking, and that sort of thing?

Emily Vikre
Totally. Right. And that was a funny thing to think about when I was writing the intro to this – The Family Camp Cookbook also is just this, like, I used to be an awesome camper. And then this process of having kids made me feel like oh my god, what am I doing, right? And, exactly, it’s all about discovering how to adjust your expectations, and adjust your assessment of what is fun. And instead of having fun, be like, I’m pushing myself to the max or like really roughing it. Fun is that quiet time away from screens that you’re having together. And maybe you’re doing a half-mile hike. And that is like your epic adventure, and you’re bringing lots of chocolate bars you are bird spotting or pretending there are trolls in the woods. And then, you know, ending the adventure with s’mores and then the real adventure is parenting kids who are hopped up on sugar at night right? Trying to all sleep in the same space. Yeah, so definitely, all of our – our approach to camping shifted a lot. You know, some things that didn’t shift, were having like it – it helps so much when you kind of, like, have your set of gear and you keep it in a particular place so that you don’t have to like take out – choose things from home with what you’re going to pack. But really have a designated set of like gear and kitchen gear and have it kind of ready to go and bins in the basement or garage or wherever. So you don’t have to think so hard. And then I mean honestly like for me what is what has been interesting is my cooking, and therefore my camp cooking has not changed that much with kids. You know, our – I’ve just always taken the approach of like, feed them what I’m cooking anyway. And they’ll whine sometimes, but they’re pretty good sports about it overall. But that said, I’ve always really, really loved hot dogs. It’s a Norwegian thing. Like we grew up – you eat a ton of like – Norway’s very into hot dogs

Taryn Solie
Okay!

Emily Vikre
And you’ll always have hot dogs at like birthdays and so I was already hot dog person and my kids are hot dog people. So that makes camping easy!

Taryn Solie
Which is like the perfect camping food.

Emily Vikre
It is!

Taryn Solie
Because you could even eat it cold if you had to, right.

Emily Vikre
Exactly, right.

Taryn Solie
I love it. I love it. So then, okay, so we’re talking about the food that you’re cooking. And you talked a little bit about as well, the gear, which I know can be a big deal for people and seem very intimidating. And – well first, I guess let’s talk about your new cookbook that’s coming out which you mentioned The Family Camp Cookbook. So what prompted this cookbook?

Emily Vikre
Yeah, so it really was discussions with my editor and I first wrote the Camp Cocktail book, because I own a distillery. I’m a cocktail expert. And, you know, had been getting so many questions from people coming through distilleries about, what did I recommend to bring as camping cocktails, and I was like, there’s got to be resources out there. And then when I was looking, there really weren’t. And so we decided to write the Camp Cocktail book. And then my editor reached back out to me a year and a half or so later, and because he knew I had kids, and was like, “what do you think about writing a camping cookbook”? And I was like, I mean, I am a cook. Right. But I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not like, that good at family camp cooking. He was, like, that kind of makes you the perfect person, right, because I am not a gearhead. I’m not, you know, super technical about a lot of things. So I bring that perspective of like, I want to have good food. I want to have fun. I want to have gear enough to make it fun. But not like overwhelmingly technical, right? And that, that is what families need.

Taryn Solie
Not anything that’s like overly burdensome, where it’s like, yeah, I have this, and I have to have this and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, that’s awesome. I mean, we are big campers. And I’m excited about this cookbook. So I did see a preview of it, I saw a little excerpt. And in the beginning, you do a really great job of prepping for camping. Right, we were talking about gear and you’ve mentioned previously like having gear that’s ready to go so and that can be really intimidating for people. So what are some things that you recommend for people have particularly for cooking outdoors while they’re camping?

Emily Vikre
Yeah, I mean, if you’re camping with your family, definitely invest in a good two-burner stove. Once you and, you know, watch some tutorials, or get the person at the camp store to teach you how to use it if you don’t know, but once you have a good two-burner stove and fuel canisters, like you really have the option of cooking a lot like you do on a stovetop and that removes like so many barriers, if you’re intimidated. You know you’re not – you don’t have to learn to cook over a fire right away, right. So I really recommend that. If you’re you know, if you’re doing car camping, which is a great thing to do with a family because you can bring more, you’re not quite so limited. You know a really good cooler as well or even two coolers so that you can really get all the food in there and keep it safe, is a really really worthwhile investment. You know, some like melamine or other cute but unbreakable dishes. I just use like wooden spoons for most things. And then like I think the other thing is just like good fire-starting materials. And this is part of what I talked about in the intro also like, hilariously given all the camping that we’ve done, my husband and I are both like kind of bad at starting fires. He even lived in like Eastern Kenya where he always cooked over a fire but he was so bad at it that the children in the village would just laugh at him and start his fire for him every day.

Taryn Solie
Oh no!

Emily Vikre
So he never got better and I have like all these friends who are professional guides so they’re always like “you do the cooking I’ll get the fire started”. But if you bring – you know if you’re not like relying on yourself to be an expert fire starter, but you are like I’m gonna bring – I’m gonna bring my good kindling, I’m gonna bring my fire starter, I’m gonna bring all this stuff and like remove all of that uncertainty then you too can start a fire and feel awesome.

Taryn Solie
Because that’s a huge, can be a huge barrier for people especially if it’s raining and you’re like oh gosh the wood is wet or I mean there’s things to do to prepare to help with that.

Emily Vikre
Totally but that’s why it’s also like – yeah, bring a tarp and some strings so that you can put up something to shield you and then have your two-burner stove and then you can still cook warm food and not be reliant on – you know some people love the simplicity of just like bringing fire stuff and a great – and a cast iron pan, which I totally get because I do love cooking over a fire. But I don’t like the uncertainty and the pressure that creates and so like just, just be prepared.

Taryn Solie
Yes. Be prepared the motto for like all outdoor trips, right?

Emily Vikre
Yeah, exactly.

Taryn Solie
And in the cookbook, so you’re talking about you know, we’re talking about like a stove cooking and then like live-fire cooking and in the cookbook, I believe, now you – there’s a, there was a little section where you talk about like different cooking styles for the different recipes. Is that right?

Emily Vikre
Yeah. And so there are you know there are camp stove cooking – well there’s make-ahead recipes. Also awesome when you’re bringing kids right like to have some things that are pre-prepped, and you’re just heating them up either over the fire or your camp stove. So there are recipes for – that you can prep at home. There are recipes for camp stove cooking. And then there are recipes that you can cook, like grilling or cook over a grate over a fire. And there are some Dutch oven recipes too, which is really funny because I only started cooking with a Dutch oven a few years ago, because I’d read lots of tutorials. And they’re always like, you know, count the briquettes and do this math. And all this stuff. I was like, I’m not a math person. This is never gonna happen for me. And then my neighbors who are former canoe guides were like, Oh, we have never done that. Like, here, let us show you. And they just yeah, they just like plop their Dutch oven over the fire, shoveled some coals on top, waited for a while until they felt like it was done. They opened it up. The cornbread they’d put in there was done. And I was like, this is definitely my style. I can Dutch oven cook. No counting involves.

Taryn Solie
Yeah, I could see where that would be a little intimidating. For sure. So okay, so good.

Emily Vikre
You’re probably realizing how not type A I am.

Taryn Solie
But like, sometimes you kind of need that with camping, you kind of have to like, go with the flow. And just, you know, something’s not working, pick something else.

Emily Vikre
Right. But so much of camping is actually like mindset.

Taryn Solie
Yeah. Getting in the right mindset for sure. So, um, you mentioned you have friends who are outdoor guides, and you had a friend of yours contribute to this cookbook. Can you tell talk a little bit about that?

Emily Vikre
Yeah, so one of my best friends from growing up, her name is Kaitlin. I’ve known her since I was like three or four years old. And she and I both moved back to Duluth in our 30s. And she, before moving back to Duluth, had spent, God like a decade and a half being a professional wilderness guide, and then also a outdoor educator. First for older kids, and now she has an outdoor preschool.

Taryn Solie
Oh, wow.

Emily Vikre
A nature preschool. And so when I signed on to do this book, I signed on condition of doing it with Kaitlin, to bring in little bits and bobs of like, really serious expertise.

Taryn Solie
Yeah, that’s great. That’s awesome. I love that. It just, it’s helpful to have kind of that background, you mentioned, like you grew up with people who, with your parents who were very expert at camping, and then to have again, that same kind of contribution to the book. That’s really nice.

Emily Vikre
And I like, I like the combination, right? Because, or I like to be able to bring in both a very expert perspective, and then that kind of lens of like, well, if you have no idea what you’re doing, and this is your first time, like what are the things you really want to be thinking about? And what, what are the priorities? What are the things that are not obvious to you that have become so obvious to someone who’s an expert? Things like that?

Taryn Solie
Right, for sure. So getting into kind of the recipes of the cookbook. So what are some – well, let’s start at the beginning, like beginner level, right? So someone who is a beginner who maybe has only camped once or twice or who has not camped, what are some recipes that you would recommend that they start out with?

Emily Vikre
I mean, there’s some great recipes that are like so easy, almost feel like you shouldn’t put them in a cookbook. You know, there’s a whole section on hot dogs and different things you can do with hot dog. You know like campfire nachos, various sandwiches even there’s some delicious like no cooking needed, you just need to bring the stuff and assemble the sandwiches, sandwich ideas. Some really great one-pot pastas, and those kind of range in – range from simplicity to more complexity, so they’re like ranging from stovetop tuna noodle casserole to like, skillet lasagna that you could do over the fire.

Taryn Solie
Oh wow. Yeah that’s, that sounds really good. So what are some of – I’m assuming some family favorites made it into the cookbook? What are some of your family’s favorite camping recipes that made it in there?

Emily Vikre
Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s mostly our family’s favorites, right? Like this is very, like, personalized, in many ways, and one of the ones that I think people see as a very surprising recipe for camping. But that is a really lovely, fairly easy recipe and that my family absolutely loves like, we make it weekly at home too. Is this pasta with dill and yogurt and then just sauteed lamb? And raisins.

Taryn Solie
Oh interesting!

Emily Vikre
It’s so good. And so fresh tasting and like very unusual for camping. But when you think about it, it’s like not any harder to bring ground lamb than ground beef for burgers. And you know, you’re just making a pot of pasta that you mix with yogurt and fresh dill and serve it with the lamb and raisins. It’s so good. And yeah, my kids love it. They love dill. So that makes it easy.

Taryn Solie
Oh, there you go. Now what about maybe like, so you’re talking about hot dogs, which are great, like just basic camping food. But I’m thinking also like, my – I’m lucky in that my kids are not super picky eaters. And sounds like your kids are maybe not super picky eaters. But do you have some recipes in there that are good for picky eaters? So for kids, who are picky eaters, you know?

Emily Vikre
Yeah, right. Like there’s an easy mac and cheese. There’s some lovely like pancake breakfast recipes. Delicious pancakes and delicious granola and oatmeal. You know, some simple, very simple things, right? Like rice cakes with peanut butter and raisins and apples. And I’m trying to even think of what’s in here.

Taryn Solie
No, those are all great suggestions.

Emily Vikre
Yeah. So there is there’s really a range of things where it’s like, oh, that’s maybe a little more challenging like orzo with kale and feta. Pasta with dill and lamb. But then there’s, there’s like canned beef stroganoff, nachos, ramen. A I kind of fancy like, not totally fancy, still camp doable, but not just the ramen from the packet ramen. You know, kebab tacos. Yeah – pita pizzas, that’s a really great one for picky eaters, you just like and you don’t have to deal with pizza dough and everything. You just take your kind of pita or naan breads and put them over the fire and warm them up and put on all your pizza toppings. And that way – there’s also a number of things in here. This is one of the things that works really well for my family is like, have the meal kind of be disassembled and have people choose, like what goes into their bowl or what goes onto their pizza. Yeah, so there’s like, options.

Taryn Solie
Yeah. That’s, and that’s always a pretty safe way to go for most for most meals, camping or otherwise.

Emily Vikre
Yeah, right. That’s just general parenting tip.

Taryn Solie
Exactly. So you had your first book, which was all about cocktails, are there cocktails in this cookbook as well?

Emily Vikre
There are some cocktails in this cookbook. It was funny when I was discussing with Kailtin, she’s like, “well, the most important thing when you’re camping with your kids is to have cocktails”.

Taryn Solie
For after they go to bed!

Emily Vikre
Again, back to the camping mindset, right? But there are a handful of cocktail recipes. And there’s also a number of, kind of non-alcoholic cocktail recipes that work so that you can have them for the whole family. But you can also spike them at will as an adult.

Taryn Solie
Yeah. I love that. That’s great. That’s nice to have the option to do one or the other.

Emily Vikre
Yeah.

Taryn Solie
Well, great. This has been so good. I do want to ask you one last question about what is your favorite current – current favorite or just general favorite grilling or outdoor cooking recipe for you or your family? Or you could do both if you want.

Emily Vikre
Well, I will say it is like 12 degrees out here in Northern Minnesota right now. So we’re not doing a lot of grilling.

Taryn Solie
Okay.

Emily Vikre
But I would say I have two that I’m like really looking forward to doing and they’re actually both in the book, when it gets warm enough again. Italian sausage burgers. I really like to use Italian – like mild Italian sausage instead of just beef for burgers. It gives it all this like spice and complexity and fattiness without having to do any extra effort. And then grilling vegetables to put on top of there so you have this like veggie sausage burger. And then…

Taryn Solie
How do you prevent grill – or have flare ups on that because sausages is so fatty.

Emily Vikre
Oh, we just cook with fire.

Taryn Solie
Oh! Okay, gotcha.

Emily Vikre
We’re like flare-up central. I mean, just have it – I mean, get the coals low enough, right so that it’s not so – when I say we cook over fire, we do get flare ups for sure and just roll with it. But you also want to make sure that you’ve let your fire, your coals burn down enough that you’re not cooking over like a raging fire and that’s true with any grilling or any campfire cooking. And then I really love cooking sweet potatoes wrapped in foil in the campfire embers or coals and then cutting them open and filling them with whatever you want to write like sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are like one of our family staples. We probably are 75% Sweet potato. And you know they’re good with bacon. They’re good with sour cream, they’re good with cheese. They’re good with chickpeas, they’re good with broccoli, they’re good – you can just like kind of use them instead of a baked potato. And get creative and they’re just really delicious.

Taryn Solie
Do you do sweet as well? Because I like I could see like, like putting chocolate chips in it and like melting it or like marshmallows or whatever.

Emily Vikre
You totally could do that. I have never done that. I always really liked, like, the sweet-salt combination of like a sweet potato with something salty, but it would be right you could go totally Thanksgiving style and put in like marshmallows and pecans and brown sugar.

Taryn Solie
Yeah. Well, maybe you’ll have to try it out. Or I might try it. Because it sounds really good. Well, awesome. This is great. Thank you so much. This was so much fun. I do want to give you a minute to tell people A. where they can buy the cookbook, and also where they can connect with you online.

Emily Vikre
Yeah, so you can buy the cookbook. I mean, it is on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. And you can definitely find it when it comes out. You know, have your independent bookstore order it, look for it on Indie Bound. And then you can find me online, mainly through our distillery, website and social media, which is at Vikre Distillery. So V-I-K-R-E D-I-S-T-I-L-L-E-R-Y. I can spell.

Taryn Solie
Get it all, get it all out there. Good. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Emily, I really appreciate it. And I’m really looking forward to seeing your cookbook when it comes out.

Emily Vikre
Thank you so much for having me. This was super fun. It has me looking forward to summer. I mean winter camping is really fun, too. But, but so you really have to have the gear. Yeah.

Taryn Solie
Thank you again, Emily, for coming on the podcast and thank you listener for tuning in. I hope you got something out of it. Stay tuned for more episodes, and I’d love it if you follow along with the podcast on Instagram at grill like a mother. Also, don’t forget to check out the show notes page for any links mentioned in this interview. Until next time, keep on grilling like a mother.