In late 2019, after deciding to move into an RV, our favorite weekend activity quickly became visiting dealerships and touring every model we could find.
One of Steve’s brothers worked at an RV dealership at the time and alerted us to a barely used 5th wheel toy hauler that had just come onto the lot. He thought he could get us a deal, but we needed to make a decision quickly. It was late afternoon when we got to the dealership, and after letting us inside, my brother-in-law left to go take care of something else.
Steve and I wandered through the rig, considering, analyzing, deliberating. It wasn’t quite what we wanted, but could we make it work? Did the lower price tag make the trade-offs worth it? Could we see ourselves living here? Did it feel like home? Could we make it feel like home?
We sat on the sofas, I stood in the kitchen and tried to measure whether there was room for my tripod and flash, I laid down on the bed, Steve walked around the garage thinking about whether it would work for his office, we opened all the cupboards, we walked back and forth, and back and forth. We turned on a couple of lights as the sun set and the world outside grew dark.
And even though I knew this wasn’t our RV, we both knew it, I wanted to stay. I wanted to pull down the shades, tuck myself onto the sofa with a blanket and turn on the TV. I could picture making snacks in the tiny kitchen and turning in for the night, comfortably at home in an RV dealership parking lot.
It was that same delicious feeling of childhood blanket forts, of setting up my dolls and my books inside a tiny castle made of cotton, and wallowing in the cozy solitude of my own little space. The whole world, with all of its expectations and shoulds, and musts, and dos and don’ts, was out there. But I was tucked safely, contentedly, in here.
I was a little bit obsessed with creating tiny fortresses as a child. One time I carved out the center of a couple of the tall, lush bushes that created a privacy hedge between our yard and our neighbor’s. I was genuinely surprised when I got in trouble for doing so because wasn’t it just the best idea? Who didn’t want to tuck themselves into a room made of dirt and branches and leaves?
There was an abandoned house on our block for a little while and I spent hours imagining how I could get inside and make it my secret hideout. A whole house, all to myself, with all those walls separating me from everyone else, my own fortress of solitude, hiding in plain sight.
This feeling, of being tucked safely away, is one of the best feelings in the whole world. Happiness is a difficult word for me to pin down. It shapeshifts and takes on different colors and textures. Sometimes it feels as solid as a rock and sometimes I can reach my hand right through it, coming back with a fistful of air. But it always shows up in situations where I am tucked inside a space of my own. The walls can be made of anything as long as I am here and everything else is out there.
We knew, when we walked out of that barely used RV, out into the dealership parking lot and into the building to find my brother in law, that we weren’t going to buy it, no matter how good of a deal we were offered. It wasn’t right. We wanted what we wanted and that wasn’t it.
A month or two later, we got into our brand new truck and drove from Colorado to Katy, Texas, to pick up the 5th wheel that had everything we wanted. That first night, we drove it off the lot, maneuvered all 43 feet of our new home onto busy roads, terrified and giddy with the whole experience of it. We parked it in a campground for the first time (thanks to the help of the camp host), unhitched, opened it up, and brought our stuff inside. We opened all the cupboards, pushed all the buttons, walked back and forth, and back and forth.
I unloaded a few groceries from a cooler into my new refrigerator. I set the bottle of olive oil and the shaker of salt next to the stovetop. I made us red lentil soup, or maybe it was paprika chicken? We took the tags off the camping chairs and set them up on our new deck. I opened a bottle of champagne. We called the kids. We couldn’t believe this was ours. We couldn’t believe we’d actually done it.
And as the day turned to dusk and then to the dark of night, we turned on the lights and pulled down the shades. And there it was. That delicious, familiar feeling of being tucked away. Of being home.
This soft and solid form of happiness has come to me in highway road stops, in Cabela’s parking lots, on the side of a road behind a hotel, on the edge of a canyon, in dense forests and flat deserts with nothing but dirt and cactuses as far as we could see. And also here, in Lyons, Colorado, in a campground so small I could almost touch our neighbor’s camper if I reached my hand out the kitchen window. Even with the door shut and the windows closed, I can hear other people’s conversations, the crunch of gravel when anyone walks past, the unmistakable sound of the camp host in their golf cart going here and there and back again.
But they are out there, and I am in here. Cocooned and candle lit. Impenetrable inside the cotton walls of my own little fortress.
Welcome to Let’s Get Lost! I’m Rebecca, a recipe developer, food photographer, passionate people watcher, and chaser of new experiences. You might know me from my recipe websites, Of Batter and Dough and A Little and A Lot.
My husband and I are nomads without a home base but with many modes of transportation, namely an RV, a motorcycle, and a sailboat. I write recipes and stories for curious people who believe experiences are more important than things and who want more adventure.
—> Get this and every issue and recipe directly on rebeccablackwell.com.
Are you a fellow food writer or recipe developer? Here are three resources just for you!
Join me tomorrow for Knife Skills with Chef Anne!
This beautiful human is Anne Blackwell, a chef who specializes in recipe testing, food photography, and video. After culinary school, Anne worked as the Sous Chef for the Keystone Conference Center before moving to Denver to work on the pastry team at the Denver Convention Center.
In 2025, Anne came on board as the recipe tester, videographer, and photographer for the recipes I publish on A Little and A Lot and Of Batter and Dough.
Perhaps it goes without saying, but I am bursting with pride and pleased as punch to be working with her.
Tomorrow, Sunday, November 8 at 5:30pm eastern, Anne will join me on Substack LIVE for a class on knife skills. To join, just click the button below at the start time.
If you can’t join us live, the class will be recorded and published here: Classes
Small luxuries and interesting finds
I am not even close to feeling the holiday spirit yet, my friends. And yet, strangely, my feelings have never mattered a whit to time, which just keeps marching forward whether I like it or not.
One of my many issues is that the whole gift giving part of things doesn’t feel fun anymore. It feels like an obligation. Please don’t mistake these sentiments for a proclamation about our society. There is plenty that can be said about our consumer-driven culture, but that is not what concerns me at the moment. This is a personal problem. My current mood can be summed up in these four words: I don’t want to.
I know we aren’t supposed to say such things, but I also know I’m not the only one who feels it.
So, here’s what I’m going to try to do between now and the end of the year. In every issue, I’ll include a find or two that I feel a little bit excited about. I’ve never sent out a “gift giving guide”, and I don’t feel the least bit inspired to start this year. But there are gifts that need purchasing and humbug attitudes that need changing, and one of the ways to deal with both is to find things that light me up. And who knows? Maybe they’ll light you up too.
Also, I don’t know if we’ll get it done before the holidays, but I CAN’T WAIT to tell you that I am working with a handful of other creators to build a little shop filled with beautiful, unique, useful treasures. I may not be sliding easily into the holiday spirit, but this? This I feel excited about. Coming soon!!!
The Ninja Cremi!
I have talked about how much I love my Ninja Cremi before but it’s possible I’m going to talk about it from now until December 25. I’ve had mine for two years and it still lights me up. If you don’t know how it works, you simply fill little pint-sized containers with anything you like—custard, yogurt mixed with fruit, cut-up fresh fruit, even canned fruit—and pop them into your freezer for at least 24 hours.
Then, when the craving strikes, put the container in the Cremi, press a button, and in about 2 minutes you have ice cream. Even if there’s nothing in your container but a can of frozen fruit cocktail and a slices of an overripe banana, this magical machine will turn it into ice cream.
My Ninja Cremi was a Christmas gift from my daughters, so I know from experience that it’s a wonderful gift for the ice cream lovers in your life. Yes, this is an affiliate link, which means that if you click on it and buy one, I earn a commission. Which I will almost certainly spend on more ingredients for ice cream. Thank you.
Scarves!
On Tuesday, I went and cut my short hair even shorter. The jury is still out about whether this was a mistake. It might have been. Still, what’s done is done, and to mitigate the damage, I’ve taken to wearing scarves. I am also currently rewatching Mad Men, so I feel very 1960’s chic.
Anyway, if I’m going to wear a scarf every day, I feel some variety is in order. Here is my current wish list, starting with five gorgeous floral silk scarves that I would never buy because I honestly can’t imagine spending hundreds of dollars on a square of fabric, no matter how beautiful. But, they are beautiful, are they not?
Ok. These five are in my price range. And also lovely. Hey, family of mine, if you’re looking for gift ideas, here’s a not-so-subtle hint.
The Holiday Baking Collection
One thing that I am always in the mood for and never feel humbug about is baking. I may be a thousand miles away from wanting to get out the Christmas lights, but I need no convincing to bake something.
I gathered 64 of my favorite recipes together into one Holiday Baking Collection. They are organized into four sections: 16 cakes, 16 pies, 16 cookies, and 16 breakfast treats.
Click here for all 64 recipes - or - download the entire collection in one beautifully designed PDF, complete with photographs and clickable links to every recipe.
NEW Road Food Recipe: Hot Honey Mustard Chicken Salad
This past Tuesday was National Sandwich Day, a day I didn’t know existed until a friend of mine posted about it in Substack Notes. As luck would have it, I was already planning on making sandwiches because we had some leftover roast chicken and a package of bacon in the refrigerator, plus a loaf of bread from the local bakery on the countertop.
National Sandwich Day is nice, but having those ingredients in my kitchen is all the encouragement I need.
Last week’s Road Food recipe was all about plant-based protein. This week is for the meat eaters.
The November CookStack Collective Class!
Join Kerry Faber on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, 4pm EST/1pm PST as she makes one of her favorite cozy fall dishes: Cabbage-Wrapped Chicken Parm Meatballs!
Access to The CookStack Collective is exclusively for members of The Lost Supper Club (paid subscribers). In addition to all the other perks, paid subscribers receive:
12 live Zoom cooking classes
Recipes and class materials
Access to every recording
The opportunity to cook alongside some incredibly talented teachers
To all my paid subscribers: This newsletter would not exist without your generous support. The CookStack Collective classes and the new Road Food series are exclusively available to you. They are two ways for me to say thank you.
First of all I love your hair. You did not make a mistake. I loved your story about your sense of being cocooned in your little safe world. Nature does that for me. That’s where I feel the most at peace. Surrounded by trees and water. I used to camp a lot as a child and boy did you bring me right back to that campground. I loved the sound of the gravel crunching as walkers went by. The smell of a morning fire. The sounds and smells of the campground coming to life. Those were the sounds of my childhood. Those were my safe place.
Cocooned and candle lit. I felt that line in my whole body, Rebecca. My version is a dark November morning, tea steaming, everyone else still asleep, the world out there and me in here. Thank you for naming that soft and solid kind of happiness so beautifully.