04.18.20
While we are all hibernating at home, getting take out food when we want, but generally eating in, I thought I’d explore the question of “Do we (or can we) cook, or shall we eat out?” Imagine having to ask yourself that question 37 times over a 14-month period, since that is how many different places we stayed from Feb 17, 2019 until our present hangout in Puerto Morelos, Mexico. At some of the locations, which included hotels, eating in was not an option since they had no place for it, and some others had small kitchens, but were still impractical for eating beyond pulling something from the fridge.
Our first stop was Valencia, Spain, where we stayed for six weeks and had an awesome kitchen. Normally it was breakfast at home, maybe an afternoon snack, and dinner out most of the time, and Valencia had an awesome kitchen! Plenty of room to cook and counter space to boot. Our next stop, Tivoli, Italy, had a tiny, tiny kitchen and our entire place was really only one large room, which we called “The Cave.” We did a surprisingly good job there with pastas followed by some wine, which we were able to appreciate for about $2.00 a bottle.
Croatia was stop #3 with an even smaller kitchen and an electromagnetic stove that I hated and always caused me fits. Having a handful of great restaurants and coffee shops within five minutes’ walk made cooking at home less appealing.
Fast forward through a series of quickie stops and usually a small kitchen we didn’t use, if they had one at all. By this time we were in Eastern Europe, including Romania, Serbia and such, and restaurant food was so unbelievably good and cheap we usually ate out most of the time.
Sicily was our next six week long term stop and here we were able to appreciate a great kitchen in our oceanfront unit in Syracusa, plus a farmer’s market with fresh food- and fish- within a 10-minute walk. Again, wine was cheap, so we enjoyed that along with fresh salmon, pasta and the like. It wasn’t until Bangkok that we stayed somewhere long enough to consider cooking, but this lovely unit on the 36th floor of a luxury high-rise was NOT set up for gourmands! The kitchen could fit into a bathroom and consisted of a hot plate, fridge and microwave. It really didn’t matter since the hub of street food made that the best and only practical option for dinner. A Pad Thai dinner just a 10-minute walk away cost 60 Baht, about $1.84 USD. The picture you see here is our miniscule kitchen.
Along the way we looked at buying SOME items to make the eating/ drinking more enjoyable and in Italy we bought a really high-end Nespresso milk frothier (for coffee) which we carted around for a bit until it was time to leave it behind. During all our travels we also had to leave a fair amount of food behind, but that’s just the way it is.
But now we’re in Puerto Morelos, Mexico and are more or less “stuck” here, but it’s actually a good place to be stuck. We have an awesome kitchen and since we ARE here for the long-ish haul, we bought a toaster oven, Crockpot, coffee maker and lots of other kitchen doodads to make life more comfortable and cooking easier. Kathleen has gotten seriously into cooking mode since she has found a “nest” for the first time in a long while and I get to be the beneficiary of her skills!
That’s the latest, as our travels are on hold for now, but I’ll dig up some other stories and experiences from our journeys on a regular basis. Stay safe, stay healthy.
#kitchens, #croatia, #valenciaspain, #thailand, #bangkok, #mexico
