Ahhh... Cooking over an open flame
Ahhh... Cooking over an open flame
It's an amazing feeling! And the results were awesome!!
You don’t have to be a cowboy or camper to cook over an open flame; you can be a middle-aged suburban Italian-American man just trying to make the best Sunday gravy ever!
Okay, to be fair, we never called it gravy growing up; I think that was a New York thing, but pasta was always a thing on Sundays.
My grandma and grandpa on my dad’s side would have us over on Sunday for these epic feasts that started with pasta (always homemade cavatelli) and ended with some sort of roast. Though my Mom taught me how to make sauce and still makes the absolute best, it’s my grandma’s sauce I’m always trying to emulate due to it’s deep, meaty flavor.
Lately I’ve been watching a lot of videos featuring survival hacks, camping tips, and cooking outdoors, so I decided to blend my love of knives with my love of pasta and try cooking it outside.
I started by batoning wood with the Apex Alchemy Amygdala, then I made some fatwood shavings, just like I’ve seen in YouTube shorts.
Then I sparked the pile of shaving with a ferro rod and started my first “from scratch” fire ever (meaning no lighter, matches, or accelerant were used).
I put the grate over the fire pit and got my cast iron pan nice and hot; controlling the heat was something I had to constantly consider.
I cooked up some bacon to “season’ the pan and to snack on. In the bacon grease, I cooked up 5 sweet Italian sausages with onions. Once they were mostly cooked, I put in the garlic and a moment later drowned it with the tomatoes.
Once the sauce was roiling over the fire, I added a fistful of fresh basil and let it simmer.
The sauce turned out amazing, with only the slightest hint of smokiness to it.
I will produce a video of the process with a recipe if interested.
This has whet my appetite for more outdoor fun and has me looking forward to getting out in the woods to use my knives and learn new skills for survival.
See you out there—Knife Junkie!
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Billy Ford, Apex Alchemy Knives: The Knife Junkie Podcast (Episode 537)
Billy Ford of Apex Alchemy Knives is featured on Episode 537 of The Knife Junkie Podcast (theknifejunkie.com/537).
Billy is a big rig driver with an abiding love for knives—he has even commented on “Thursday Night Knives” from the road!
Billy took his passion for knives and began to cover the knifeworld from his perspective on his Apex Alchemy YouTube channel. Now, Billy is making knives on his own and under the watchful eye of custom knife maker Jed Hornbeak—going by Apex Alechemy Knives.
Apex Alchemy Knives has two fixed blade models so far: the Raptora, an EDC sheepsfoot. and the Amygdala, a beefy fixed blade for outdoor adventures.
Find Billy and Apex Alchemy Knives on YouTube and on Instagram.
