It’s good when editors let you pitch the kind of articles that make you laugh. Which is why I am excited about my most recent post on the very respectable outdoor online magazine Adventure Journal, where I took a stab at the topic of food and love in the backcountry. It started as a conversation between friends on how to impress a date on a hike (“make your own trail mix!”) and resulted in this article:

If you can’t cook a decent meal in the backcountry, you’re destined for romantic failure. A way to anyone’s heart is often through his or her stomach, especially if you’re on the tail end of a grueling day outside. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Yeah, that will refuel the person you’re crushing on, but a homemade olive hummus wrap with sea salt? That might be the extra touch you need to turn adventure partner into your partner.

My father always told me that I should judge a man on whether or not he could make me breakfast in a park, the point being that even when you’re not in the backcountry, an eligible dirtbag should know how to handle his stove. Anyone can go for a week without toilet paper, but can you brew a good French press and whip up killer pancakes on a summit?

Why food? Because food connects us. We all have to eat and there is simple beauty in breaking bread with someone, particularly when your body really needs its sustenance. Putting effort into what you eat shows that you’re putting effort into your time together. Long stories of romance aren’t born out of freeze-dried packages.

Read the rest on Adventure Journal.