A weekend vacation in food

Jon and I spent this past weekend traveling to Florida for a family wedding. I had my journal and pens in tow, expecting to get a ton of writing done up in the air, but the only bit I got down all weekend took five minutes in a cafe where we killed some time before our flight back home. As always, my mind was focused on one thing–food.

I have a weird relationship with food when I travel. I get hungry the minute I board a flight, so I’m one of those oddballs that actually appreciates airplane food. I also tend to get sick everywhere I go, so I’ve wound up with weird food associations. Some are good weird, like potato leek soup. I had my first potato leek soup in Washington, DC on the last day of my elementary school “senior trip.” I was under the weather and the thought of a big meal made my stomach turn, so I was the only kid who ordered soup at California Pizza Kitchen. In my head, potato leek soup will forever equal remedy. Other associations are the bad kind of weird, like drinkable yogurt. To be fair, drinkable yogurt will always disgust me just by merit of being drinkable yogurt, but it will also always remind me of being sick in our hotel room in Malta with nothing else to eat, just because a Google search said it’s good to eat yogurt when you’re sick and that’s the only kind the one grocery store in the area carried.

I want to try everything when I travel, but I’m ultimately a creature of comfort. It’s hard for me to wake up in unfamiliar surroundings, knowing I don’t have my own refrigerator to rummage through or miles of breakfast options in every direction. For that reason, I’m really thankful for the foods that get me through the transitions of traveling. And that’s why it’s all I wrote about on my trip:

2/24/14 Orlando, FL

I am thankful for sandwiches that clear the fridge before I leave home, for my precious bottle of post-security-check water, for the big deli sandwiches and potato chips in my bag that we won’t let ourselves open until the seat belt light turns off, for complimentary airplane biscuits and tea, for the little twenty-five-cent bar of chocolate in my bag in case of emergency, for morning coffee from gracious hosts who have rice milk and agave at the ready, for the only restaurant in town open at 11am and their feta fries and hummus that taste like home, for weddings with tomato soup and grilled cheese, second helpings of chicken in beurre blanc, and late-night cheeseburgers for dance floor fuel, for Cuban sandwiches that bend the morning rules when eggs run out early, and droplets of iced coffee in my journal in February.

Thank you to all those that gave me memorable new food experiences this weekend: D& F Italian Deli, for the sandwiches we devoured on the plane as though we’d never seen food in our lives; Krazy Greek Kitchen in Lake Mary, Florida, for a delicious pre-wedding brunch; Big City Catering, for some of the best wedding food I’ve ever had; and Barnie’s Coffee Kitchen, for a great last breakfast and iced coffee and for letting us loiter!