Cooking On Vacation

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When I travel, the thing I look forward to most is eating at restaurants. The romance of discovering something new, fawning over the imperfections of a tiny restaurant nobody has ever written about, ignoring your phone for hours on end because there’s no service and everyone you know is in a different time zone, so what's the point? Nobody is texting you at this hour anyway. When you’re on a good vacation, everything is “the best.” Every plate of very basic tomato pasta at the sweetest, smallest trattoria with bad lighting, every glass of shockingly above average house wine. Just being in a dining room, no matter how loud the volume, is lovely. When you don’t speak the language, rather than another person's conversation you never wanted to hear, the sounds become something else– musical, almost. The whole thing is bliss.   

In becoming parents, we decided we’d aspire to be the type that would attempt to do everything we did before, just with a baby. We knew it would be impossible to accomplish this all (if not most) the time, but we could try and come close. But like everything else that comes along with having a baby, you don’t know what you don’t know. Going on a vacation for the first time with a baby (is he still an infant?) is something we really didn’t know– but how could we? Did I google “things to bring on an international trip with a baby”? Yes, and I’m pleased to report I had already packed most of the things. But all babies, parents and trips are different, which is why other people's advice is only about 67% helpful – I prefer to think of it as simply “information” to sort out as I please. 

We were as prepared, logistically speaking, as we could be (though I did accidentally forget the portable sound machine– huge mistake). In the throes of vacation-induced delusion, we sort of thought Charlie would adapt to the European lifestyle, in the way that we all do. Smoking skinny cigarettes when you’re in Europe doesn’t count as smoking, so maybe Charlie would sleep in the stroller at a restaurant for longer than twenty minutes. European Charlie, like European all of us, would be different somehow. The rules would not apply and the routine we worked so hard to establish could (maybe) be put on pause. Afterall, we were in (and I can’t stress this enough): EUROPE. 

Well of course no, this is not what happened. I didn’t smoke any tiny cigarettes and Charlie would not sleep in the stroller for longer than twenty minutes. With a few lucky exceptions, at 7:01, if not freshly bathed, enrobed and in his softest pajamas with 7–8 ounces of formula in his tiny belly, ready for sleep in a dark room kept at 67°, he would start the slow and painful process of melting down. Very inconvenient in a place where the restaurants don’t open till 8. 

But that’s what grocery stores are for. Second to eating at restaurants, my other favorite thing to do on vacation is to cook. Exploring dreamy farmers markets full of produce that is as pristine as it is cheap, “regular-ass” grocery stores that sell crackers you’ve never tried and a new style of anchovy for purchase, everything in between– well, I love it.

As for the kitchen equation, I truly, madly, deeply love working with one hand tied, metaphorically. Nothing helps me focus more than taking away my creature comforts. If there is no skillet and only a grill, then I must grill. If the oven doesn’t work, everything must be done on the stovetop. If the knives are so dull they barely count as knives then…well, I will struggle and things might look a little rough, but that’s fine. Unrelated to the practical aspect of all this, I once stayed at a rental where all the plates and serving platters were rectangular or square– my true hell! But we adapt, and all the inconveniences and idiosyncrasies of these homes that are temporarily ours become part of the charm. 

I can’t say my greatest work is always born from these restrictions, but often some really wonderful things come from this style of cooking. The fridge clean out, making-do-with-what -you-have style. Using up the massive container of salt-packed capers you manically bought earlier in the week, using lemon where you’d usually use vinegar, eating eggplant for four days straight because it’s in season, and when eggplant is in season in Italy, well, it’s really in season. When you don’t have your usual arsenal at your disposal, you must be flexible, you must get creative. Cooking on vacation often is, if I may, a real something from nothing situation.

Tomorrow, I’ll send out all these recipes, along with a few things we brought on our trip to make traveling with a baby easier, right here on this lovely little newsletter. See you then, and thanks for being here.