REI Camp Stove Cookoff
The REI Camp Stove Cook-Off, 2003 In early May, while looking through event listings for my area on the internet, I saw a notice of a cooking contest sponsored by REI, my favorite outdoor gear store. The finalists all got stoves and cooksets, and first prize was a $1000 donation to a conservation charity and a huge camping kitchen. I had a smoked salmon & tortellini recipe I'd made a few times on the trail and decided to enter it. The folks I'd served it to hadn't complained too much and it seemed like something I could cook in the allotted time (30 minutes). So I followed the notice on-line to an entry page and started by looking at previous winning recipes. My dish had been made on the fly, just throwing in ingredients in whatever amounts seemed right...turning it into a written recipe was going to be interesting. I spent a few days on the chore, measuring things at home to figure out how much pasta to use and how much salt, and finally came up with something that s...