Continued food from part 1.
I have eaten Peak, Back Country, and Mountain House many times and I believe they have been around for a while and most likely are made by food scientists. The newer to me meals listed below seemed to be trying to fill a niche with more environmentally sustainable food, while trying to up the taste levels by producing small batches cooked by people that have a passion for it.
I want to start off by saying across the board all the meals needed more time to rehydrate than stated in their directions. I even wrapped my meals in a puffy to keep the heat in. I wouldn’t suggest this method in areas with problem bears. The average extra wait time was 5 minutes per meal to reach what I thought was optimal rehydration. Optimal defined in this instance as not crunchy.

Nomad nutrition
“Our mission is to feed avid adventurers and their pursuits with locally crafted, wholesome and sustainable meals; to share our passion for clean, non-GMO sports nutrition; and to support local food producers whenever we can. In short, we set a new standard for adventure meals.”
All these selections were plant based nutrition. We had the Irish Shepard’s pie. This meal needed extra time, lentils were still firm with an additional 7 minutes, the flavor was decent, but texture was lacking.
Would buy from the company again just to try more of their selection, however, wouldn’t try the Irish Shepard’s pie again.

Good to go
“Our mission is to create the most delicious meals, using clean ingredients, to be enjoyed wherever your adventures take you.”
The Pad Tai (pescatarian, gf) had a good texture and a taste that was mildly spicy.
Their mushroom risotto (vegan, gf) texture good, taste was ok but somewhat bland.
Would try their products again.

Crazy Creek Chair
Ally bought this chair, it’s a luxury weight item I wouldn’t carry on 99% of my hikes. To give her credit she did get the Hex 2.0 version, their lightweight model. Still, that is an extra 18.5 ounces I can do without.
As I sit here in it typing away, I have to say it’s fairly comfortable. While not as comfortable as the couch beside me or my swinging chair, outside it actually offers more lower lumbar support the both of them. It would be extremely comfortable given almost all other options while backpacking. As a plus the stays make for excellent splints in the backcountry, should the need arise! Hell, the whole chair can be rolled around a leg if need be. How I know is a story for another time.
Overall, I would not purchase this for my use. It’s not quite comfortable enough to replace a car or raft camping chair and too much weight for my backcountry hiking kit. However, after Ally lugs in on a backpacking trip, I do snag it every chance I get. I would definitely try to squeeze it into a multi-day kayaking trip.

Sea to Summit Spork
I purchased their Titanium spork. I wanted to get a longer utensil to fit inside bagged meals and their utensils were beside the food at REI. I ended up choosing the titanium spork because it was the lightest and why buy two pieces of cutlery when you can get a fork and spoon in one! In reality it’s really just a spoon with shallow pointy spikes. I do love it, its light weight but most importantly its long enough to fit in a bagged meal. I haven’t had the occasion to use it in place of a fork, but I think it would suffice.
The only drawback is it is not dishwasher safe. I found this out the hard way. I was loading the dishwasher after I got home from a week in Big Sur and noticed there was still some cheese stuck to my spork in the sink. As I was putting it in to the dishwasher, I thought I should google to see if this can go in here then my mind wandered… minutes later the dishwasher was running. While unloading it I saw my spork and was like, “hummm I guess it’s not dishwasher safe.” I googled it to confirm my observation. Google agreed that all the anodized finish was gone, and it was not dishwasher safe. After going down the internet rabbit hole I still use my spork that may possibly be slowly poisoning me, but hey it’s dishwasher safe now that the anodized finish is already gone, right?
Would defiantly buy this again, as a matter of fact I will probably just pick one up next time I am at the store and not put it in the dishwasher next time.