This is a first impression post on cooking with the cooking gear I purchased for my backpacking and camping trips. This test was done in controlled conditions. The items that I carried with me on my trip were the Bushbuddy wood burning stove, my Trangia spirit burner, the Clikstand for the Trangia, the Snowpeak Trek 900 Titanium cookset with a fry pan lid, my BHK Bushcrafter knife, a knife-fork-spoon-cork screw-can opener combi in an Olive drab pouch which is called the “foreign legion 5 in 1 chow set” online which I’ll call FLC for short and the Snowpeak titanium spork and plate. Some of them will be reviewed separately laterThis was tested on one of my outstation official trips. What started out as a 15 day trip to oversee the deployment of an upgraded Hospital Information System (HIS) and migrating our software from Windows server to Linux, thanks to the indifference of the developers turned into an extended trip which lasted well over 2 1/2 months with only about 3 short visits back home to Delhi. On the first trip back, I realized that I could no longer put up with the mess food anymore. It wasn’t such a big issue for me as I had my camping stuff which was light and portable so I packed up my stuff and also a bottle of organic extra virgin olive oil and organic brown rice from Navdanya’s outlet in Hauz Khas and a few liters of methanol from the local paint & hardware shop. Search as hard as I did, I could not locate my 1 liter Trangia meth bottle. The next option was to fill a bottle of Rail Neer (Mineral water provided on trains) with meths and drop it into my backpack.
Ready to roll 
Locally, I got a few garden fresh tomatoes from my friend and some veggies and plantains which she got for me from the nearby market. The plan was to use the Trangia burner for the second part of the trip and then the Bushbuddy (as there were enough trees in the hospital campus) for the final part of my trip. However on this trip I wasn’t able to use the Bushbuddy except for singeing off the remaining feathers of a chicken as I was worried I’d blacken the ceiling of the guest room.
Filling the Trangia 3/4 full with methanol
The ingredients are ready and so is the Clikstand-burner assembly
With the wind shield in place and ready for the pot
Cooking Rice in the Snowpeak Trek 900 Ti
Tried stir frying the veggies using the Trek 900's fry pan lid -but it was too small!
The BHK Bushcrafter made quick work of the chicken, but was unsuitable for working with veggies for which I used the thinner FLC blade
The Bushbuddy and the Trangia in the Clikstand pose side by side. The windshield for the Clikstand is around the Bushbuddy. Both are great buddies to have for camping or Backpacking.
The FLC blade, although so convenient to use later came out from its mountings. Strong as it was, it couldn’t handle the slightest force applied to it sideways in my case at the can opener end. I don’t recommend this product any more as it will prove pretty unreliable when you are out and have to rely on it.
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