SMITHEY - Everyone Travels with a Favorite Cast Iron Skillet, Right?

I've been thinking about Alaska a lot this week since our daughter is up there visiting friends before she heads back to college later this month.  During Hadley's week and a half visit, she's spending time at some of the same places that we visited together a couple of years ago as she winding up a year of living in Palmer.  Before Hadley packed up to come home, my wife flew up to spend a week with her, camping and hiking all over, and then I flew up to spend a week where we spent time in Homer fishing with friends (Part 1 and Part 2), floated the Kenai River with Outgoing Angling, and then off to Seward for hiking and exploring.  We came home with a 50 pound fish box and so many memories.  Alaska is tough to beat even though I feel like we saw just a small fraction of it over the week that I was there.

Of my wife's handful of superpowers, finding top tier campsites and Airbnb spots is her forte.  For Hadley and my trip, she arranged a wonderful dry cabin outside of Homer and a small yurt in Seward for our stays.  Knowing that over the two weeks of travel with Hadley that we'd be cooking for ourselves quite a bit, my wife flew to Alaska with our Smithey No. 8 Chef Skillet and then I brought it back at the end of my trip.  As Hadley was packing provisions for our week on the road, she grabbed a dozen local eggs, rhubarb jam from a roadside stand, and a loaf of sourdough bread that we made toast, breakfast sandwiches, and grilled cheese with.  

As much as I enjoy Airbnb's, they typically have dreadful cookware, knives, and kitchen tools.  Having our own cast iron skillet and slotted spatula made camp and kitchen meals so easy and I can't imagine a trip like this where we won't travel with at least one (if not several) of our favorite pans and kitchen tools.  In fact, I'm working on a custom knife/tool roll that will have everything from knives, spatula, tongs, digital meat thermometer, wood cook spoon, and more, just to be fully prepared.

Here's a few snaps from the cabin, kitchen, yurt camp, and on our forest to ocean hike.  Everything tasted as good as it looks and I can't wait to get back someday.

 

 

We cook almost exclusively with Smithey pans and the quality cannot be beat.  The four pans that everyone should own include the No. 8 Chef Skillet, No. 10 Skillet, Carbon Steel Farmhouse Skillet, and one of the Dutch Ovens.  That covers all the bases and though these fall squarely into the category of "Buy Once, Cry Once" each will be passed down to your children (and their children) with proper care.

What kitchen gear can't you live without on a trip?  Let me know with an email.