Coleman All-in-One Cooking System
Lewis Creek Shooting School 07.20.12
We were at Lake of the Woods, Minnesota and it was a little after noon. I was starving and couldn’t quit thinking about the half-dozen nice walleyes in the boat’s cooler. Our guide, Eric, was bringing the boat into the little cove where our campground and outfitters, Rainy River Resort, lay on the banks of the tea-colored water of Lake of the Woods. “Are you hungry?” I asked Eric. His face spread into a broad smile. When the boat hit the dock, he and my wife, Cherie, headed for the fish cleaning shed and I headed for the camper to slice potatoes so they’d be ready when the fillets were ready.
Food is always better outdoors. Some of the best food I’ve ever eaten has been cooked on boats, picnic tables and around a camp. Cooking techniques vary, with some being simple and some quite complicated. Cherie and I like to travel light and cover a lot of ground between stops so we like quick and easy cooking methods. Cooking on the pop up’s stove is easy but it heats up the camper in summer and I like to be outdoors when I’m camping and therein lies the beauty of the Coleman All-in-One Cooking System.
In the past, we’ve carried a one burner lightweight butane stove and a small propane grill. We like grilled food and we need the stove for breakfast and other food but butane can be hard to find and having a grill and a stove takes up space. The All-in-One solves both problems. Coleman is the icon company in camp stoves but the All-in-One is a departure from the green steel suitcase that’s been the most used camp stove in camping for about a hundred years.
The idea with the All-in-One is versatility and the Coleman folks did a great job. There is a simple cook surface for pots and pans, and a nonstick frying pan/griddle is part of the system. There is also a grill top for steaks, chops, or grilled fish. If you need to feed a crowd and don’t want to spend a lot of time, you can always make a stew and the nonstick slow cooker pot works great for that job. The whole system comes with a Cordura bag that makes stowage simple. It even has two pockets for extra propane bottles. This is the perfect system for cooking a shore lunch, breakfast in the duck blind or tailgating.
Dick Jones is an award winning outdoor writer and a member of the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association Board of Directors. He writes for four North Carolina Newspapers as well as regional and national magazines. He’s hunted and fished most of his life but shooting has been his passion. He’s a former High Master, Distinguished Rifleman, and AAA class pistol shooter. He holds four Dogs of War Medals for Team Marksmanship as shooter, captain and coach. He ran the North Carolina High Power Rifle Team for six years and the junior team two years after that. Within the last year, he’s competed in shotgun, rifle and pistol events including the National Defense Match and the Bianchi Cup. He’ll be shooting the Bianchi, the NDM, the National High Power Rifle Championship, The Rock Castle AR15.com Three Gun Championship and an undetermined sniper match this shooting season.
He lives in High Point, North Carolina with his wife Cherie who’s also an outdoor writer and the 2006 and 2011 Northeast Side by Side Women’s Shotgun Champion. Both Dick and Cherie are NRA pistol, rifle, and shotgun instructors and own Lewis Creek Shooting School.
