Outdoors Cooking

The Sweet Spot that’s so hard to find.

There are no fewer than 10 cookbooks on my shelves dedicated to outdoor cooking and eating— from camp cooking, to barbecue, to picnics.

One of my tomes, the restaurant cookbook, This is Camino, has a chapter dedicated to an all-day cookout called: “A Whole Meal Cooked in the Fire.” It includes rigging an A-frame apparatus from which to hang a lamb leg on a rope, and advice on how to slowly rotate the leg over garbanzo beans bubbling in a clay pot. “The first tasks for your dinner party need to be done in a little bit of a rush, because they will affect the timing of everything to come after.” No pressure!

That particular party lives bright and shiny in my imagination like a memory and a premonition.

It’ll never happen.

I’m hopeless at barbecue! I can never find the sweet spot between too hot and too cold on the grill. I’m a disorganized camp cook, dismayed by cold water and “eco-friendly” cleanup. I’m a lazy picnicker who’d rather grab sandwiches and chips from the deli.

My collection o…