Heifering About in the Woods or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tofudog

My friend wanted to go camping. On purpose. She wanted to strap on a heavy backpack, spray herself with a chemical designed to kill things, refrain from showering for days while it seeps into her pores, and walk straight into the known territory of bears, wolves, mosquitoes, moose, and rapists. Voluntarily. At first, I dismissed this as a mood, but I began to worry when she showed me the wool socks she planned to wear. Wool -- like, the itchy kind that leaves itchy pink rings around your ankles. It's like signing up for middle school.

What's worse, she wanted me to go too. I told her that I had no intention of being raped by a tribe of moose wearing wool socks and that I was allergic to pesticides and that there was a higher risk of contracting an STD in Appalachia than in Manhattan. The only way I would consider going camping is if she arranged for it to look something like this:

A week went by. Then, my friend told me that she had made for the two of us to stay overnight in an Appalachian Mountain Club hut. I didn't have vast experience with huts, but I had read enough Joseph Conrad to know that they were to be avoided. When I voiced this concern, my friend said that we were unlikely to run into fictional psychotic tribal chiefs in New England. I said, "Have you never visited Yale?"

So, on a perfectly good Saturday in March, I found myself in soaking wet wool socks and polyester pants, schlepping a backpack full of water up a snow and mud trail. I had objected to carrying water, pointing out the piles of snow all around, but my friend mumbled something about microbes and walked away up the path.

A warning about hiking. Hiking is walking. Only it takes an hour and a half to walk a mile. If you think that the inch of snow on the ground will be manageable because, after all, it's almost spring, it won't be. As you go higher up the mountain, the snow gets deeper. It's like God is warning you to turn back while you still can. When the snow gets deep enough to reach your hip, you start to worry that you're going to break your ankle and then drag yourself off into the woods to live alone and unnoticed in a lean-to (which you'll have to figure out how to make) until you either contract fatal tuberculosis or a nice family from Idaho stumbles upon your annual mosquito-squeezing ritual and shields their children's eyes.

Against all odds, six hours later, we arrived at the hut in time for dinner. In the off season, there are no meals served, but a hippie oversees the kitchen while the hikers cook their own food. After debating what menu would be least likely to attract wolves or mosquitoes on the trail, we had settled on Annie's mac and cheese, mixed with sliced tofu dogs.

In a hut kitchen, one is expected to be as tidy as possible, while using as little water and power as possible, which is next to impossible. For one thing, they won't turn on any lights until the sun has set completely, so you can't see what you're cooking. For another, it's difficult to light a solar stove on a cloudy day. However, since we were being supervised by a bearded man with a notebook and tacitly by the other campers, we persevered and took turns scrubbing our utensils with natural, biodegradable, exfoliating soap and rinsed our dishes with water from a pitcher, pouring it like we were in a chemistry lab. The Beard snorted when we tucked our food wrappings into a ziploc bag and sniffed when we dumped our leftovers into the compost bin.

An hour later, as we sat in the main room listening to a group of tall women with short hair compare and contrast L.L.Bean and E.M.S. long underwear, the Beard came barreling out of the kitchen in a rage. He waved my tofudog over his head like a Somali drug lord waving a gun. "Who left THIS in the compost bin?!?!" The room stopped and watched each other.

Finally, one of the short hair ladies spoke. "Elspeth, you had tofurkey, didn't you? Could it be yours?"

"No tofurkey has more of a purple tone. That's definitely tofudog. Looks like the Whole Foods kind too. It's much fatter than the Trader Joe's one."

"Oh, yes. You're right."

The Beard circled the room, training the tofudog on each of us. I stood up. "Um... I think maybe that's mine." The Beard turned to me slowly.

"Yours?"

"Yes."

"And you put it in the compost bin?"

"Yes. I thought it was food so, you know, it was biodegradable."

In response, the Beard simply pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Then, unexpectedly, one of the ladies came to my defense. "You know, if it's soy, it shouldn't have preservatives that can't be broken down. That doesn't sound healthy for one thing. For another, you'd think that Whole Foods would pay more attention to environmental concerns."

"Louise is right. Someone should do something about this."

"Let's start a letter-writing campaign."

"Oh, sure, Catherine. You know how well that worked for the Meerkat Protection Act last year. Let's picket!"

"Let's boycott!"

"Let's blog!"

"Let's make s'mores!" someone said.

And so, distracted for the moment by prospect of melted marshmallow,we all settled around the biofuel lantern and kept each other awake with stories about the horrors of poultry farming and dogfighting and the corn industry.

Ingredients:
water, isolated soy protein, vital wheat gluten, tofu (water, soybeans), natural flavors (contains autolyzed yeast, yeast extract), salt, wheat starch, evaporated cane juice powder, canola oil, spice, seasoning (spices, dehydrated onion), carrageenan, vitamins & minerals (thiamin hydrochloride, cyanocobalamin, calcium panthothenate, ferric orthophosphate, iron oxide, zinc oxide, dimagnesium phosphate, dipotassium phosphate), paprika and beet powder (for color), extractives of spices. CONTAINS: SOY and WHEAT. Manufactured in a facility that uses egg ingredients.