How to FoodParty from Anywhere
My tips for eating and cooking while traveling
People often ask me where they should eat when they travel. While I totally get the impulse that every meal on vacation should be a hit and vetted by a trusted source, I also don’t get it.
To me, the best part of eating while traveling is the feeling of discovery. The act of wandering down a street because the smell of something grilling is calling my name, or popping into an unassuming building to find a boisterous market scene full of vendors to choose from. This is the magic of being somewhere you’ve never before. It’s getting lost but then finding your bearings by eating your way around town.
Seeking out the next meal is how I orient myself in a place I’ve never been to before, and the journey between eateries is kind of like having a big ol’ pile Mapquest print outs on the passenger seat of my Honda Civic. In other words, I have a vague sense of where I’m going, but the specifics are not important because anything is possible!
This got me thinking that maybe some folks are asking me for lists of places because they don’t feel confident looking for food outside their comfort zone. Or maybe the issue is some find that eating while traveling can feel less “safe”, especially when the most common options in many places might be various forms of street food and not dine-in restaurants like they are used to.
In this case, their concern is often based on false notions of how street vendors operate their businesses. I like to remind people that if someone is cooking food on the street, totally exposed, in a teeny kitchen, their literal livelihood is on the line. They are likely seeing very fast turn over and operating with a keen sense of how to keep their food safe and delicious so customers keep coming back. The alternative would be like a death sentence to their business so the level of care is often superior to what I’ve seen in many restaurants.
We are extremely fortunate taking a vacation while the world burns. And we live a measly 2 hours flight + 2 hour drive away from the stunning landscape of La Paz, Mexico. The Sea of Cortez is downright dreamy, practically technicolor, in shades of blue and turquoise and green. While we’ve never been to this little pocket of hidden beach coves and empanada stands, we quickly found our way around the city by looking for food because we have a toddler and toddlers are quite literally always hungry. Together we are navigating this new place like three hungry dorks who know remedial Spanish and it’s going swimmingly.
With a very vocal Loosha in tow we now have to be an even more prepared for random fits of hunger and cranky tiredness. Which is what prompted me to write this newsletter.
Of course we travel with snacks, I’m not a masochist. We always start with a smattering of things from home and see how far it takes us. But we mostly lean into trying new things. And Loosha gets what Loosha sees. She gets to try pretty much whatever she wants to try and believe me that has been plenty. Turns out, years of traveling has prepared me for being a mom while traveling in more ways than I imagined. In lieu of a hit list of places you must go to eat while in La Paz, here are some of the ways that I make sure we are having a foodparty wherever we go.
How to FoodParty from Anywhere:
Get yourself some basics. If you are like us and prefer staying in house rentals or airbnb’s over hotels, then you have access to a kitchen and that means you can and probably should opt to make some of your meals yourself. I like to know that we can wake up and eat a little something most days so that our first mission of the morning isn’t on an empty belly. Basics on this trip included: tortillas, eggs, avocados, cilantro, tomatoes, and some cucumbers and carrots + fruit. Plus, our ideal beach days are long and aimless so to prevent needing to leave the beach before we are ready due to hunger I will pack up extra simple sandwiches or in this case tortillas with avocado etc so in case we can’t procure a proper meal we are fed and happy and can milk those last licks in the sun.
Carry a small knife with you. This could be a little pocketknife from home that you slide into your checked back or in our case is something we borrow from the house or buy in a local market. I will Macgyver a little cover to slide on so that the knife an be with us at all times. This means we can picnic wherever we are mid adventure. A stop at a fruiteria to grab a watermelon on the way to the beach is a no brainer.
Let being in a new place guide your snack choices! Normally, Loosha is snack happy. She cannot get enough. But when we are traveling she is so absorbed in her new surroundings she barely asks for snacks at all. And when she does we offer her local snacks, maybe a pastry she’s never tasted from the panaderia or some bag of this or that chip from the corner store. Usually in flavors she doesn’t know.
Follow your nose. We literally track smells until we find the place or origin. In fact, Udi and I are known to follow the scent all the way to what we thought was a little restaurant but turns out was just a family bbq’ing in their front yard. With some back and forth (we thought we were ordering a plate of food), they gladly packed us up a pile of meat and some sides and wrapped it in foil. It wasn’t until that point that we put the pieces together but it was too late! They seemed tickled by our stupidity and we got an incredible home cooked lunch and paid them for their kindness.
Street food is king. We look for high turnover and stalls and vendors set up on the street are generally the place to be if you want to eat like a local, and why would I want to eat any other way? I have very rarely been disappointed following this practice of eating wherever a bunch of other people are eating, crouched around a plastic table or leaning against a wall. The only times I have had food poisoning while traveling have been at rando’ white table cloth restaurants. FACT.
Always leave room for more. We try not to fill up so that we leave room for trying the next thing that looks good. Vacation eating a marathon not a sprint.
oooo this trip looks beautiful!!! <3