I’ve written in other posts about how my father used to take my sister, brother, and I camping at King’s Canyon, in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, when we were young (roughly around the ages of 8-11). This would have been around the years 1987-1989 or so. My dad was somewhat of a jokester. He liked to play mini-tricks on us from time to time (to get a laugh). One of these tricks was his “secret sauce”. While we were out camping, during dinner time, dad would inevitably begin cooking dinner. He would ask us to help set the table while he worked his magic at the old green Coleman propane powered camp stove. The stove had a fold out top with out-folding sides. This made it difficult for us kids to see what dad was doing while cooking. Afterall, we were pretty short little ones at that time. One time, as we were busy helping prepare the campsite dinner table, dad told us to “Go away now! You don’t get to see what I’m doing over here! I’m cooking with the secret sauce! You don’t get to know what it is!” Naturally, he knew we would be very curious and even though we kept asking him what it was he refused to tell us (snickering as he cooked).

As my little brother and I played around at the edge of the campsite, waiting for dinner to be completed (that night we were having shish-kababs) I got the hair-brained idea to sneak up on my dad and find out, once and for all, what the hell this “secret sauce” was! As I talked to my brother, pretending to be disinterested in what was going on with dad, I slowly moved my way closer to the car (it was closer to the table where the cooking was going on). Just as my dad turned to say something to my sister, and away from the stove, I saw my opportunity. I ran as quickly as I could, up the little hill that stood between him and I and around the side of the Coleman grill. “Aha!” I said, as I grabbed his hand with the bottle in it. “I found the secret sauce! It’s syrup!” Dad burst out in laughter, as did my sister and brother. “Stop it now! You’re not supposed to see that!” he said in a comedic tone. “Ok now, you’re not allowed to tell anybody!”

And that’s the totality of the story of the secret sauce. So now, if you’re ever out camping with CP, and someone mentions “secret sauce” you’ll know exactly what were talkin about!