Make-ahead

Soft, warm flour tortillas made from scratch at camp — just flour, salt, baking powder, water, and oil, rolled thin and cooked on a hot cast iron pan.

A real Swiss half-and-half cheese fondue, made the way our camping friends taught us — melted low and slow over campfire embers, with the wine, garlic, and figure-eight stir that keep it silky.

Red lentils, coconut milk and curry spices in one pot over the coals, done in about 30 minutes — plus a thermos variation that cooks itself while you drive.

A slow-fermented, no-knead bread mixed days ahead and baked in a cast iron dutch oven buried in charcoal briquettes — the crust cracks, the crumb is open, and the method works over a campfire, a backyard fire pit, or your kitchen oven.

From-scratch pancake batter cooked in a cast iron pan over the fire, plus the rules that keep pancakes from sticking — and rather more pancake history than you asked for.