Omy Nommy Stuff

Let me make one thing clear... Ed and I are foodies. We both love food, and can adjust our expectations according to where we are eating. We aren't overly picky - McDonald's burgers certainly aren't as good as, say, the green chili topped Bulldog Burger from The Standard Diner in Albuquerque, but we know better than to make that sort of comparison. McDonald's burgers tend to be fairly consistent, with the exception of one in Grants, NM, so they are often what we settle for while on the road.

When we've made the drive to New England in the past, our foodie nature devolved significantly, and our diet typically looked something like this:
[unless otherwise specified, "soda" means either Dr Pepper or Mountain Dew]

Day 1: Water, stuff from the cooler in the car (hard boiled eggs, cheddar cheese, crackers, celery and carrot sticks with ranch dressing, bologna, soda), dried papaya and pineapple
Day 2-4: cereal bar, gas station coffee, Munchos, Snickers, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, McDonald's, beef jerky or stick, sweedish fish, gummy bears, Cracker Barrel

You can see how quickly we deteriorate to scavenging from the gas station and making frequent McD's stops. We aren't getting salads, either - it's burgers, fries and chicken nuggets. Even if the food in the cooler is still cold and good by day 2, it doesn't tend to get eaten. Day 1 is also an improvement over what it originally was, and we added in the Cracker Barrel visits when we discovered some very close to the highways we frequent.

The luxury of not just a refrigerator, but a stove and convection oven/microwave and constant access to water has significantly improved our road trip menu. While we still made some gas station food purchases, we made only one real McD's stop (second was coffee only), and we still ate at a Cracker Barrel for breakfast one morning. Our menu diversified significantly and was more healthy in general, but still doesn't show that we really are foodies. This is a close approximation of when we ate what:

Day 1: water, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese hot dogs with Lipton herb noodles, mandarin oranges, Starburst, chocolate wafer pieces, beef stick
Day 2: water, soda, orange juice, cheese hot dogs and garlic mashed potatoes, Munchos, beef stick, banana, mandarin oranges, bologna and cheese sandwiches, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, nachos with salsa verde
Day 3: breakfast tacos, orange juice, water, soda, cheese hot dogs and broccoli alfredo noodles, iced tea, likely something else I can't recall because I was too tired

Day 4: Cracker Barrel, yogurt with granola and blueberries, banana, McDonald's and Sandella's, Dryer's Kona Coffee ice cream cone, soda, McD's coffee, mandarin oranges
Day 5: Dunkin' Donuts donuts and coffee, mandarin oranges, banana (we stopped by lunch, but I still had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich)

We used the stove while on the road but not the oven/microwave. Probably a good thing we weren't relying on it, since when we tried to make some queso today, it wouldn't work.

For miles upon miles, we suffered through listening to the oven squeaking incessantly with every little bump. It was not installed very well and thus had rattled itself loose from its brackets and even came unplugged. Neither of us can recall exactly when the racket started, or when the lights on the display went out, so we're not sure quite where we were when it came free. It absolutely was loose the entire way across Indiana, though.

Ed performed a bit of surgery, brandished a screwdriver and yanked it out of its home. He doesn't think he can fully fix the seating it lives in, but it has been plugged back in and put in its place. It appears to work, but we have yet to actually use it, so we'll have to try it out for cookies later in the week or something! I expect as we become used to cooking in our new kitchen, that we'll become more ambitious with our meals. But for now, I'm enjoying my chips and queso and salsa whil sipping a birch beer from Zeb's.