How to make great outdoor dishes, from a chef who lived in a camper

NEW YORK — Look carefully at the photo next to Lee Kalpakis’ recipe for hot dogs with fried leeks and sauerkraut, and you might notice a small intruder: A honeybee has invaded the outdoor dinner shot. Kalpakis has earned the right to do as she pleases: She lived for just under two years in a 22-foot camper in upstate New York, refining the 75 recipes in her book “Out There.” “It’s helped me to be a more efficient cook,” says the one-time food stylist, recipe developer and private chef. “Cooking with cast iron is such a great way to cook something like scallops because you’re getting such even heat distribution,” she says. She hopes both to provide new recipe ideas to people familiar with outdoor cooking and to reach those who don’t, “sort of guiding them slowly in this way of starting small.” Living in a camper through winter snowdrifts and August humidity — with her partner, Sean, and dog, Mac — taught Kalpakis a lesson we all need to be reminded of: Stay flexible. But Roger Shaw, Kalpakis’ publisher at Weldon Owen, an imprint of Insight Editions, says “Out There” also has ideas and dishes for people who never intend to go outdoors.