Two years in the making, the National Parks Cookbook features a hundred different recipes from all 63 of our country’s National Parks, including Pappy and Harriet’s Tri-Tip Sandwich and Chocolaty Date Overnight Oats for Joshua Tree campers.
Hailing from Rhode Island, author Nina Elder asked Pappy and Harriet’s to share the recipe for their Tri-Tip Sandwich with cheese, grilled onions, and Pappy and Harriets’ signature barbeque sauce. To test it out for the cookbook, she made it on her home grill before experiencing a full-circle moment finishing the cookbook out in Landers.
“We were able to go to Joshua tree which was amazing I loved it so much and also while we were there we were finishing up the cookbook and so I spent my early mornings there in the desert and Landers writing head notes for the recipes for a lot of these a lot of these things in the book so that was really kind of a cool kind of full circle moment. The best part was I was I had worked on the Pappy and Harriet’s Tri tip sandwich at my home in Rhode Island so I had made that on our grill, and it was delicious we loved it so much and then when we were out in Landers we had a chance to try it in real life so we went to Pappy and Harriet’s and i was sitting there and it was like this other world they kind of thing where I was like, “Oh i made this at home and now here it is,” you know… so it was really amazing, that’s such a great space.”
After the savory evening meal comes the sweet morning breakfast with the cookbook’s Chocolaty Date Overnight Oats. I asked the book’s author Melissa Knific how she arrived at this recipe.
“This is a recipe that we thought made sense for Joshua Tree because dates grow nearby in Coachella valley and so we wanted to incorporate those into a recipe and also create a recipe that was breakfast, something that you could do ahead and maybe have in the morning before a nice hike. Dates pair perfectly with chocolate and this recipe is also vegan. There’s almond or oat milk that you can use, the dates help sweeten the oats and there’s some nice spices that are mixed in there and we thought it would be a nice life sustaining you know kind of hearty breakfast before you head out.”
The National Park Cookbook is available now and every purchase helps support the U.S.-based global non-profit National Geographic Society.
Follow Us
Dining and Cooking