The number of people who’ve messaged me asking whether they need solar panels before they can cook in their van is genuinely surprising. It comes up constantly. And I understand why. The van life community talks about solar non-stop. Amps, watts, lithium battery banks, inverters. It starts to sound like you need an electrical engineering … Read more
Six months in, I opened my cumin and it smelled like wet cardboard. Not rancid. Not gone. Just empty. Like the jar had retained the shape of a spice but nothing else. The aroma was there for about half a second, and then it was just dusty air and mild disappointment. That was somewhere in … Read more
A standard 10-inch cast iron skillet weighs 2.4kg. My full cooking kit, including the hob, two pans, a lid, and a spatula, comes to just over 4kg. For a long time I refused to do that maths, because the answer was uncomfortable and I liked having the cast iron. Eventually the van I was building … Read more
Most van kitchens carry at least one pan too many. Usually two. The third one was bought for a specific recipe, used twice at most, and now lives at the back of the cabinet behind the cooking spray and a corkscrew that’s been there since the first trip. Every time you actually need a pan, … Read more
The non-stick pan you’re planning to bring into your van will be dead in eighteen months. Probably less. That’s not pessimism. That’s what happens when a coating that degrades around 260°C meets a gas burner that comfortably exceeds that temperature on medium, used daily, cleaned in whatever water you have access to, stored in a … Read more
I built my first van with a cooler. A decent one, a 45-quart Igloo with good insulation, bought specifically because several van life forums said it was “good enough to start.” It lasted three weeks before I accepted it was making my life harder, not simpler. This is not a post about which option looks … Read more
Propane works everywhere. Induction works better sometimes. Choosing wrong costs you time, money, and the occasional ruined dinner you didn’t have the ingredients to fix. I’ve cooked on both. Planned meals around both. Had enough honest conversations with people on the road to know this debate gets messy fast, mostly because people compare the two … Read more
The smell of bread baking is the one thing I missed most when I first moved into the van. Not a proper shower. Not a full-size chopping board. Not even a couch. It was bread. Fresh bread pulled from an oven, with that particular crust that only comes from steam and high heat and patience. … Read more
Most meal prep advice is written for households. Two people, minimum. Sometimes four. The recipes assume a full fridge, a full freezer, and someone else finishing the other half of that pasta bake. When you’re traveling solo in a van, none of that applies, and following that advice creates a different kind of problem: too … Read more
That’s the whole system. Not a strategy, not a framework. Just eight things you keep on hand and the fact that they combine in more ways than you’d expect when the nearest grocery stop is three days behind you. I’ve been cooking in vans long enough to know that pantry discipline is the difference between … Read more