Living Minnie: What's for Dinner?

This evening we are hosting our first Minnie dinner party! The other youngsters in residence at the Fountain of Youth will be gathering at our campsite for a potluck featuring spring rolls, spicy Korean noodles and other goodies, so in this third installment of Living Minnie, I thought it was time to bring you into our kitchen to give you insight on how we eat well and healthy on the road. It’s easier and less expensive than you might expect.

Before we headed over the Golden Gate back in June, we agreed that for the first month we would consume no junk food. We are not big junk food eaters to begin with, so why bother with such a pact? When it comes to camping and road trips, we tended to find ourselves in the candy and chip aisle, especially at gas stations because you have to buy something when using the restroom! We knew that if we started this trip indulging in bad habits, the precedent would be set and we might struggle to regain our senses.

Fortunately, we have done well in sticking with our plan of minimal junk food. We have also done very well in eating healthy, though it has taken some work. During the summer and early fall months, we expected to stock up at roadside stands that we envisioned dotting every rural corner in the west. It didn’t work out that way. While many communities do have farmer’s markets, which we seemed to miss by a day or two, there were very few roadside fruit and veggie vendors like we were used to seeing in California. We knew we were spoiled in California, but we had no idea just how spoiled until the dearth of truly fresh vegetables left us longing for the Alemany Farmer’s Market!

We made due with frozen vegetables. Why frozen? Alanna explained to me that despite their larger carbon footprint, frozen vegetables were more nutritionally sound than canned or even “fresh” veggies in the produce aisle. After weeks or months in cold storage and transport, those veggies billed as fresh were really lacking in health benefits. One thing that really surprised us, though, as we perused the frozen vegetable aisle for the first time in our married life was the lack of product. In San Francisco, we shopped at The Good Life Grocery, a small, locally owned grocery store on Cortland, with just a couple of freezers. On the road, though, we hit some of the bigger chains which often contain three or four gigantic aisles of frozen foods. One wall is often reserved for pizzas, another for ice cream, and a third for fried potato products. We usually find the veggies in just a cabinet or two. Once located, the hunt begins for unadulterated vegetables, meaning those that are not coated in unhealthy, high sodium sauces that render them pointless from a nutritional point of view. Or a taste one.

It’s been a real education for us, shopping in these stores, bypassing the football field long cookie aisle, the super-sized everything, the processed and sugar-laden treats strategically placed to entice the youngest shoppers. Bypassing the junk doesn’t mean we spend a fortune. Our food budget for the month is $400, which breaks down to a cost per meal of 2.22 per person; most months we’ve stayed under that. Eating out is a rare treat.

Thankfully, Alanna is an excellent cook. She brought a massive collection of spices and an ample pantry, and has been putting together delicious and healthy meals routinely for the last six months. After our two stretches in New Mexico, our freezer is half full with green chiles, which now make their way into most meals, thank goodness. She churns out all kinds of burritos, curries, stir-fries, and soups—in batches sizable enough to feed a small army, so we are often powered by leftovers, which are perfect after a long day on the trail.

We do our cooking outside, unless it is raining or too windy, and I’m blown away by what she is creating on the camp stove. There is an indoor stove in the Minnie but our space is so small that you can touch the stove and the smoke alarm at the same time, so we’ve yet to use a frying pan indoors without the smoke alarm going off. Instead, Alanna loads up a basin with ingredients and heads out to the picnic table to work her magic. The onions occasionally try to blow away as she chops them and vigilance is required to thwart the grey jays, ravens and other critters that try to snatch things directly off the cutting board, but cooking in the fresh air while the sun is setting is a relaxing way to end the day.

The best part of eating on the road these last six months is that we get to eat every meal together. We used to eat amazing dinners together every night, but when Alanna started training, eating dinner together became next to impossible on most nights because she was working. Same with breakfast. She was often gone before I even considered waking up. Now, though, we have had every meal together for 207 days! What a gift, to share breakfast lunch and dinner with the one you love!