like most backpackers, when i got into backpacking, i thought that eating freeze dried meals was the only way to go – they were light weight, they packed ok in the sense that one could grab a couple packages for a trip and be done, and were easy to make. except for being very pricey, having little flavor and making one’s stomach not feel so good. i started dreading dinner time – for some reason all the dinners started tasting the same. and cost wise, freeze dried was too expensive as i went out more often and was taking my son along with me. so….i started cooking on the trail. and that was even worse! i hated having to carry multiple pans and then cleaning those pans, using so much fuel up to cook on windy nights. spending an hour in the evening cooking and cleaning when i was tired was not fun. i also had become tied down to campsites that had an adequate water supply – so i could do dishes. one day, about long many years ago, i saw mention of freezer bag cooking and i wondered how that would work for me – and for the most part i have never looked back. it is the best of both ways of cooking – it is fast, it can taste very good, you can have so much variety and it is affordable. the food is very packable – and can be a way to lighten your pack weight. best of all, it has made it so i can have what i want for dinner, and my sons can have what they like, and we eat at the same time. it simplified my outdoor life so that i can spend more time being out there. the amount of gear i carry for my kitchen is a shadow of what i used to carry. in fall 2004, a hiking partner and i got to talking and realized we needed to broaden our food & meals on the trail, and come up with more recipes…and make them as gourmet as we could. at the time, if you did fbc, it was usually standards like mashed potatoes and stuffing. so, we started coming up with new recipes for our weekly hikes-and trail testing every one of them in the wilds. the rules were a stove, a tea kettle or small pot, a freezer bag with the food and a spoon. the recipes came fast. we opened our eyes and saw how many products could be used. the freezer bag cooking website evolved out of this in late 2004, and in late 2005 kirk and i published the first version of our first cookbook, freezer bag cooking: trail food made simple. as the years have passed by and we got further into it, http://www.trailcooking.com was born. we realized that while we preferred fbc, that we could do even more on the trail – be it fbc meals, fbc hybrid meals, the fauxbaker for making baked treats and gourmet one pot meals that didn’t suck up fuel or require long cleanups. we invented the soft, ultra light freezer bag cozy and opened up our gear store online. we hope you enjoy our blog and visit our websites for more information. see our “in the news” section for articles, magazines and books we have been featured in.