Last year at NEFFA we mostly bought food. We brought a range of cold options, but they weren't very tasty and the kids weren't very excited about them. This time we've mostly eaten food we brought. Why? The miCARwave!
We have an old (light!) microwave [1] and I recently got a portable power station (battery). We combine this with a cooler (pasta, rice, cheese, sauce, freezer pucks, etc) which gives a lot of options for tasty warm food.
My deal with the kids was that if they wanted to eat purchased food they could, but they would need to pay for half the cost. And if they wanted to buy desserts they were on their own. This seemed to be a pretty good balance: at Lily bought and enjoyed some fries, but other than that the kids were pretty happy eating brought lunch and dinner.
(I previously wrote some about this in my 2025 tour retrospective, and an earlier iteration in my 2024 one.)
[1] Ours is used, but it looks like similar ones are still made.