Season 2 · Stop 16 · Biscuit’s Long Way Round · the village lanes, early November · Gerzsi’s day off
Biscuit doesn’t go for a walk. He goes for a smell, and the walk follows along behind it. On Saturday he knocked on the lodge door at seven with a red leash in his mouth and asked if I wanted to come. I said yes before I asked how far.
Gear in this story: jump to the picks →
I wore my kitchen clogs, because they have never once slipped on a wet kitchen floor. The lane down to the footbridge was covered in wet leaves. My clogs went one way and I went the other. Twice. Biscuit didn’t look up. His nose was on something very important by the mailbox, and a beaver lying in the leaves was not it.
On Sunday I came back in real walking shoes. I laced them up on the same bench, next to my clogs, which were still lying where I had kicked them off. The new soles had deep little grooves, and on the wet leaves they just held. I stood there for a minute stepping on leaves on purpose. Biscuit waited. He is very good at waiting, as long as there is something to sniff.
Walking with Biscuit is not walking in a line. We went past the bakery, along the river, through a field that was mostly mud, under a fence and past the bakery again. A ten-minute walk to the post office took us an hour and a half. Halfway round we sat on a stone wall and shared hot tea from my thermos, and I drew our route in my notebook with a stubby pencil. It looked like spaghetti.
Around noon his nose went up. Not down at the ground, up into the air. Then he walked fast, which a basset hound almost never does. I followed him over the footbridge, up the lane and straight through the back door of Chef Tamás’s kitchen, where a turkey was resting on the board. Chef Tamás looked at two muddy animals and pointed at the sink. Then he put me in charge of the drippings.
I poured them into a measuring cup and tried to spoon the fat off the top. Ten minutes later I had a greasy spoon, half a cup of gravy base and a basset with gravy on both ears.
Chef Tamás stopped laughing long enough to hand me a fat separator. I poured the drippings through the strainer on top and waited while the fat floated up. Then I squeezed the handle, and clean brown juice ran out of the bottom while the fat stayed put. Thirty seconds. The turkey neck and the bones went into his biggest pot for stock. Biscuit watched the fat go into a jar and looked at me as if I had cancelled Thanksgiving.
I walked home the long way round, because there is no other way with Biscuit. My feet were fine. My clogs are back in the kitchen, where they belong, and the notebook page now says: “Shoes for leaves. Clogs for floors. Separator for gravy. Never let a basset near the drippings.”
🐾 What I learned on Biscuit’s walk
- Buy shoes for the walk you actually take. The HOKA Transport 2 was the only walking shoe on all three test lists (OutdoorGearLab, Treeline Review and RunRepeat), and Treeline found its Vibram outsole grippy on dirt and trails.
- Wet grip can be measured. In RunRepeat’s lab the HOKA Bondi SR had a wet traction friction coefficient of 0.77, the best measured wet grip of the six shoes in our guide.
- Break new shoes in on short walks. OutdoorGearLab found the Transport 2 took a walk or two to break in, while the ASICS GEL-Contend 9 was comfortable from the first walk.
- A spoon works, a separator is faster. America’s Test Kitchen preferred bottom-drain separators like the OXO Good Gravy, because the fat stays on top while the juice drains out. Milk Street found a plain spoon worked almost as well, just slower.
Chef Tamás’s real lesson: This part isn’t made up. In Chef Tamás’s kitchens, stock gets made from everything, and any big pot will do. So the turkey neck and the roasted bones go in the pot, not the trash, and good gravy starts there. What counts is what ends up on the plate, not what the recipe card says.
Meet Biscuit the Basset Hound, and see his own surprise pick →
Sources: OutdoorGearLab (walking shoes), Treeline Review (walking shoes), RunRepeat (walking shoes), America’s Test Kitchen (fat separators), Reviewed (fat separators), Milk Street (fat separators), Outdoor Life (thermoses), WeAreTeachers (pencils). Prices are in the two guides, checked November 2026. Tap a button for today’s price. Affiliate links: how we make money.
🦫 The Lodge Letter. Black Friday is November 27. We’ll email you when a tested pick actually drops, plus one story a week. No spam, he’s a beaver.
Gerzsi and Biscuit are made up. Chef Tamás, his stockpot, the gear and the test results are real.
🛒 Shop the story
For wet leaves (walking shoes)
For the gravy (fat separators, 4 cup)
Tea on the wall (thermoses)
For the route notebook (pencils)
Affiliate links. Ratings from OutdoorGearLab, Treeline Review, RunRepeat, America’s Test Kitchen, Reviewed, Outdoor Life and WeAreTeachers, linked in the story and the guides.
