Food on the Road

      Taking a vacation?  If you're a foodie like me, you know there is a lot of preparation ahead of time to get ready for such an adventure.  If you're not much of a foodie, here is a small glimpse into what some of us experience as we plan to travel.  Not only are my partner and I "picky" eaters who only want the finest quality foods and ingredients, but we also experience low blood sugar if we do not eat enough of the right foods at the right times.  Therefore, the morning we leave, we load up the cooler with everything from hard boiled eggs to baked tofu and gluten free bread (my partner also has a gluten allergy).  We also make sure we have some kind of eating utensils and yes....a crock pot....even though we are planning to stay at a hotel.  We justify this with our need to eat right before bed to keep our blood sugar balanced and the fact that we watch the pot like a hawk to make sure it doesn't over heat.  Finally, we make sure we have map-quested from our hotel to every nearby vegetarian resteraunt.

     We recently drove to Middleton, Wisconsin for a music festival where we were graciously put up in a fine hotel for several days, promised performer care food since I was a performer at the festival, and allowed to keep a refrigerator in the room for an extra $10 per stay.  This was quite a deal! The first night we arrived we heated up homeade vegetale/bean soup in the crock pot for a warm welcome to our stay.  No need to drive anywhere or spend any money.  The next morning was breakfast.  With enough snacks in our room we were fine with hard-boiled eggs, chips and hummus.  By lunch time we were looking for performer care food....and to our suprise it was not available yet.  Off to Monty's in Madison, just a 10 mile drive from Middleton.  Curried Tofu/vegetable and noodles fo rme and Salmon hash for my partner.  For dinner, more veggie/bean soup.  The following morning we mustered up enough bravery to try the hotel food.....I mean afterall, it seemed hard to really mess up eggs and potatoes.  I was wrong.  The powdered eggs pailed in comparision to the omega-3 rich, farm-fresh, local, organic eggs I am used to eating.  The luke warm potatoes were good the first few bites.  Lesson learned:  No hotel food. 

    For lunch we scouted out performer care again....the food was coming!  Hungry performers from every corner of the hotel were popping in to see if there was food.  Too hungry to wait much longer, my partner and I went to our room to snack on peanut butter and jelley, hummus, chips and salsa again.  My partner could not handle veggie soup for dinner again, so we traveled into Madison, this time stopping at Himalchuley, a Tibetan and Napalese resteraunt. This is pretty much where we ate the rest of the festival when we weren't snacking.  What a delicous treat.  We ordered 3 or 4 deliciously spiced foods from the menu and had left overs to heat up in our crock pot. 

     We also had the joy of stopping into the Willy Street Co-op, where we could find more gluten free bread, vegan baked goods, soups, green juices, and even some vitamins we needed. We could also use our Co-op discount since my partner is a member of the Clintonville Community Market here in Columbus.  Nice!  Meanwhile, life at the festival went on.  I think we actually spent more time in the resteraunts and Co-op than we did at night stage.  However, this was all worth it in the end to feel nourished and well fed.  (Much respect to the festival volunteers....I know they work hard and I don't expect them to meet all of my special food needs.)

     On our drive home from the festival we stopped at a Noodles resteraunt where I ordered a curried tofu dish specifying that I have a possible allergy to Shitake mushrooms.  They assured me the dish was made with button mushrooms and that they would clean all the surfaces before making my food.  Wow!  Thanks!  Several miles up the  road when I actually opened the soup.....a mysterious shitake-like mushroom reared it's "ugly" head.  If it looks like a Shitake, smells like a shitake, and the broth tasted like a shitake....it might be a shitake.  Actually, I was so hungry I ate the tofu and some of the noodles and I was fine.  One blood sugar drop on the way home....which sent us scrambling into a Taco Bell for a bean burrito, but all in all it was a satisfying trip.  I still feel a little uneasy rolling through a Taco Bell with my Local Matters bumper sticker on the back of the car....but such is life on the road.