It’s not like die-hard skiers needed to adjust their resort spending habits due when the economy turned south—we were poor long before that. But sometimes, the lure of hot chili cheese fries and a cold beer is just too much to pass up. You’re cold, you’re wet, you want something warm in your stomach, and you crave a tasty beverage to wash it down.
So around here, we dedicate ourselves to innovatively sidestepping the $6.50 PBR tallboy (these exist in real life) and the $11 cheese fries available at the resort restaurant and bring some delicacies ourselves. On our menu? Deliciousness.
Tools:
This might take a little more preparation than your usual insert-granola-bar-in-pocket packing routine, but hey, if it saves you half a day’s wages, why not spend a few minutes on morning prep?
- Flask
- Cooler
- Foodstuffs
- Camp stove
- Car with hot engine
Beverages: Beer & Coffee as Parts of a Healthy Diet
- It’s a lot to ask for an in-car espresso machine, but it’s not hard to make coffee at home, pour it into a thermos, and toss it in the back seat for later. Crave super-freshies? Put grounds in your French press, set up your camp stove in the back of your car, heat water, and press away. (Or, for our five readers without Subarus, set up the stove on the hood.)
- Cold beer in the cooler? We needn’t even explain the savings here. You can throw down $8 for a six-er of a nice microbrew at the grocer, which is the cost of one beer at the bar plus the tip. If you’re too cheap for even a cooler, stash your sixer in the snow. Just don’t forget where it is unless you want to wait till spring.
- For the slightly more ambitious, we recommend mid-day and après hot toddies. Squeeze a bit of honey in a mug, add a squirt of lemon juice, add a shot (or three) of whiskey, and top the mug off with hot water from your trusty cook stove. Stir. Result? Renewed soul.
Snacks: Fill up on Faves
- Have a bag of fruit ready—apples, bananas, oranges, pears … whatever you dig. Dried or otherwise.
- Never go into the mountains without a box of crackers. Just don’t. They act as a vehicle for your cheeses, meats, and packets of jam stolen from the corner diner.
- If you’re a carnivore, stock up on some jerky. Mmm … cured meats.
The Hot Stuff: On to Entrees, in Order of Difficulty
- First off, we all know that the classic resort fare—soup in a bread bowl—is really just pre-made soup in a hollowed-out loaf of bread. Just buy and hollow out a round loaf of bread, get a can or two of tasty soup, and heat the soup up on a cook stove. Dump the soup in the hollowed-out bread, and voilà, you have a steaming-hot, fully edible bread bowl. (Word to the wise: don’t forget a can opener.)
If you get a good box of macaroni and not the cheap yellow stuff (yeah, you’re poor, but you can afford that extra $1), all you have to do is boil the noodles in water (melt snow if you need to), add the dash of milk you brought in a water bottle, and stir in the powdered sharp cheddar mix. We dare you to find someone who doesn’t enjoy macaroni and cheese on a frigid ski day.- For true glory-seekers, we can’t say enough about how amazing pizza warmed on your car engine is. Now, we know what you’re thinking—a grease fire under the hood is the last thing anyone wants. But if you wrap a pizza completely in foil, start up your car, and let it sit for about 20 minutes as the engine idles (hood closed), the car produces enough heat to warm the pizza up and melt the cheese nicely. Our panel of testers found the pizza quite tasty—no coolant undertones detected. Drawback: idling your car isn’t awesome for local air quality, but if you were going to eat inside the car with the heater on, this was going to happen anyway.
Best for Last
- While we ski, we think of what every skier thinks of: brownies. Use a good brownie mix to bake up some deliciousness the evening before you ski, then toss the full dish in your back seat. Slice the brownies and make a multitude of new BFFs in the resort parking lot, or hoard them all for yourself. For bonus radness, you can warm the brownies, wrapped in foil, on your idling car motor.
Follow any combination of these recommendations, save some green, and enjoy a stomach full of warm food. Clearly, a killer playlist for your car stereo is mandatory. (Journey is a solid mid-day pick-me-up.) Crank up the heater, plunk some mugs of goodness into the cup holders, and feast. Let us know how it goes. With the dinero you save, you can amp up your tailgating equipment with a sweet French press, excellent backpacking stove (justifiable since you’ll use it all summer too), and maybe a crowd-pleaser like the Burton Liquid Lounger (it’s a cooler, flask, beer cozies, towel, stereo speakers, and bottle opener rolled into one).
Why not?! Hilarious yet very useful!
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thanks for an important put up!
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