One Month – No Kitchen

So I have been away for quite some time. The reason is we have moved to a whole new state and in the process were on the road for a while before we got settled into our new place. While it was an adventure for sure, I’m glad to be somewhat settled again.

I knew I would not be able to cook for a while, but what I didn’t think about at first was that I would have to pack up everything in my kitchen ahead of time and then would again have to unpack it, wash everything, and get set up again. It’s a process to say the least.

A stop along the way. This photo reminds me that there is more out there than my surroundings.

We took some time traveling before settling in, which meant a lot of eating in restaurants. It’s the longest I’ve had to eat food that I didn’t prepare myself and I’m happy to say everything went pretty well, except a slight upset stomach at one stop – more on that in a minute.

I’m not going to try to pretend that I followed SCD (Specific Carbohydrate Diet) 100%. I’m at a point (entering my 18th year since starting the diet) where I’m lucky enough to be able to have some other foods – though I try to stick to it as much as I can especially when traveling.

For the most part I stuck with salads. I’ve always done well with salad and I usually pretty much know what’s in there. Most restaurants offer oil & vinegar. I also picked up a green salad from the grocery store and added my own tuna a fews times – that’s always been my standby.

So with the “bad” night – it was a couple of days before Christamas, which made getting around in the area we were practically impossible. We didn’t really know where anything was and traffic was a nightmare. So we went to the restaurant that was closest to our hotel. This restaurant was a 24-hour place that specializes in breakfast foods, but they did h ave some salads so we decided to give it a try.

I’m always leary of 24-hour places because it seems like the grill can be greasy, which makes the chicken  greasy and I don’t handle greasy food that well. Nonetheless I ordered the cobb salad and hoped for the best.

This was also the same night that SpaceX launched a rocket that lit up the California sky. I mention it because the entire staff of the restaurant (I should have known that there were almost no customers in there on a Friday night for a reason) went running outside to look at the “weird cloud.” This included the manager and…the cook.

Anyway the salad seemed okay – the chicken was a little oilier than what I would have liked and a little rubbery, but I thought it would be okay. There almost wan’t anything else on the salad so that was my main disappointmnet at the time.

The next day I didn’t feel well, but it luckily passed quickly and we moved on. It’s always nerve-wracking when you’re on a car trip in the middle of nowhere to be worried about an upset stomach, but everything  turned out fine. I was just mad at myself for eating somewhere that I knew I probably shouldn’t.

I did have a kitchenette in a hotel room some of the time. I do recommend it if you’re really trying to stick with SCD and it’s your only option, but cooking in a kitchenette is not as fun as I thought it would be. For one thing, I had no ingredients. Trying to figure out small amounts of exactly what’s needed wasn’t all that easy. I did manage to make bacon and eggs a couple of time though. My favorite thing about kitchenettes is that there is  full-size refrigerator to keep stuff in.

Kitchenette bacon and eggs

A month later, I finally have a kitchen again, all my stuff in it, and I’m been able to cook regular means. I never realized how happy I would be to stand in front of a stove!

New year, new me. Stay tuned for new recipes and new stories of my SCD journey. I can’t believe it’s been almost 18 years since I started this ride.

Sherry Lipp
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