SOS! 27 Ways to save the Day! Captain Cottager the Emergency Edition

Skunky dog? Giant gaping hole in the roof? Wine that refuses to come out of the bottle? Not on your watch, dammit. When something goes wrong out at the cottage, you gotta be ready to fix the problem yourself. Step up and be the hero with these easy emergency fixes.

1 SALVAGE OVERCOOKED MEAT

So you’ve left the steaks or chicken breasts on the grill too long, and they’re overdone. Don’t panic, says chef Alida Solomon, a Georgian Bay cottager and the owner of Toronto’s Tutti Matti restaurant. But don’t serve those jaw-straining hunks of meat whole. “That’s horrible,” she says. Instead, cut them into thin pastrami-ish slices. Solomon serves sliced steak over a salad with a flavourful dressing. “At the restaurant, we put Greek yogurt in a blender with a little honey, basil, mint, wholegrain mustard, a couple of capers, and some red vinegar and olive oil.” Overdone chicken, pulled like pork, also works in a salad. Or use it sliced the next day in sandwiches, tacos, or fajitas. How would the chef rescue overdone pork? “Tonnato—that’s tuna mayo—with tons of arugula, on a pita or on sourdough,” she says. “Add deep-fried shallots. They’re just delicious.”

—Martin Zibauer

2 DEAL WITH A WATER-ACCESS NO-TP CRISIS

Code brown! Climb the highest pine to obtain cell service, and call the nearest float plane airdrome. Explain the situation. If it has to be a cash deal, the pilot will need to land on your lake. (Do a whip-round.) If digital credit is possible, a low-altitude airdrop will do the job. Insist that your 72 rolls of Eco-Green Care Magnum wipes are waterproofed with plastic.