Eat Here

It's Cheap and Homemade

It has often been said that what we are meant to do in life comes to us so naturally that we could do it with our eyes closed and our hands tied behind our backs. For me, cooking is one of the most natural things in the world, but of course, one needs both hands for that activity.

As soon as I could slide a chair up beside the stove, climb up, and peer into a bubbling pot, I was hooked. I was (am) on the shorter side, so many things were just out of reach (still are). I was enthralled by the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes in the kitchen long before I skipped off to kindergarten. My Mom was a stay-at-home-mom, at least in my formative years, and I, the caboose child of five little bed-jumping monkeys.

Mom babysat a few other kids who brought canned ravioli and Spaghetti-O lunches that we coveted, and they hated. We dipped from stock pots full of Campbell’s tomato, bean with bacon, chicken noodle, or vegetable beef soups served with saltine crackers, or a big variety of homemade soups, all cheaper fare for a large family.

Our big vat of lunch often simmered on the back of the stove while we played. Theirs plopped out of the can, a thick, bright orangey-red glop with added noodle-type objects heated up in its own pan. I have no idea why, but it seemed somehow more exotic than the Campbell’s glop or anything made from scratch. Their Mom was not a fan of Campbell’s soup. She was a suit-wearing business-type who, admittedly, only cooked on weekends.

They had fancy-pants Little Debbie Swiss rolls and oatmeal pies, we had a jar full of Mom’s cookies, and when we were big enough, a jar full of cookies that we baked ourselves. My Mom was no fool. Cook and bake day in, day out, or train each of five children (even her son) in how to manage the every-day meals and kitchen chores so you could opt out and shine when the holidays rolled around. She chose the second option.

Mom was a foodie with a lot of kids, and Dad was an Army cook back in the day. There was always something marinating, cooking, baking, congealing, or being prepped for some meal, some time. We thought ahead, stockpiled staples, stretched every penny, and took great joy in making a table full of food out of sometimes very little when I was a kid.

I was lucky enough to meet a man with the same basic values, having grown up the same frugal way. Dan also takes great joy in cooking and eating basic, mostly homemade food sourced from what we have on hand. And yes, we are both foodies. We have been known to base travel plans around certain foods or seasonal crops (I see you, Hatch chiles).

Dan has mouse DNA, so he is always looking for the best cheeses. My name is Brenda, and I am a chocoholic. We like what we like, and if we can’t find what we like, we make it ourselves.

Making Mother Hubbard meals out of anything in the cabinet is a skill we both possess. We have been known to feed our travel hosts in a flash home cooked meals cobbled together from goods available in their supposedly empty cabinets. We can easily feed a crowd from food stockpiles in van and trailer. We put to use whatever fresh meats and veggies we have on hand, or if shy of these, rely on foods we dehydrate and store during the times we are not on the roll. We are never without plenty of food. We usually find another hungry soul or two hanging around sniffing the air, so we invite them in to load up a plate.

We cook mostly what we call “farm food”, sourcing goods from local produce markets to prepare our meals, both at home and on the roam. I admit that we take help from canned staples like tuna, beans, and tomatoes, but my palate knows that canned plastic tasting ravioli was never an exotic lunch. I am glad that I learned to enjoy the food in the pots simmering on the back of the stove more than any commercially manufactured foodstuffs.

I post a great many both every day and fancy meal pics on my inspirational/travel Facebook page, “The Sunny Side”. There, photos of what we are cooking or what we are eating are captioned with the ingredient list and cooking instructions, or an actual recipe. Peggy, a sweet friend and newsletter reader, suggested cooking/dehydration/food storage as something people would like to hear about in an audio (or video) post.

Here you see the earliest known picture of me, cooking in the soon to be “our” van, and our first rest area breakfast together, on our very first road trip. Awwww.

I was featured this past summer on a van life blog as a guest speaker, to talk about cooking on the road. I would post the link here, but it included very little discussion about cooking or food, but plenty about our experience acting as extras on the “Nomadland” movie and cooking for around 100 members of cast and crew, on set. That, my friends, is a story for another day.

In the meantime, run on over to “The Sunny Side” (if you get lost, type stepintothesunlight in the search box) and just scrrrroooolllll through the pics. See anything you would like to munch? I plan to share some food stories and recipes here, in a variety of formats.

I am retired, so cooking for a living is not in the cards for me. Instead, I cook for a man who doesn’t mind cooking for me, and he does it very well. I cook for him, and for friends and family, every dice with my knife an intention to heal, to love, to nourish, to soothe, every stir with my spoon a prayer, to fill bellies, hearts, and to share the joy of what comes to me, naturally.

Sending you much love and wishing you tasty dishes,

~Brenda Cordray

“The Desert Rose”