Travel Tummy

what I eat to reset after a trip

I am blessed with a sweet cute adorable little Jewish tummy that can only be described as horrifically volatile following 15 hours of air travel. The whole eating meals out of sync with my usual rhythm, snacking an ungodly amount, dehydration, travel stress cortisol spikes, lack of sleep, and whatever is actually in airplane food… does my gastrointestinal tract dirty.

I am also lucky enough to have a physical reaction to the altitude itself that involves bloating, gas, and a constant gurgling that can only be described as 'alive’. I recently found out that the particular tummy ache I get midair is not a personal affliction but rather a common condition having to do with cruising altitude! thanks Radiolab for this episode!

While I work on an upcoming long form newsletter about the complicated term “Israeli” food, here is a list of my tired tummy reset foods with a bonus recipe explainer to follow:

• Rice. We splurged on a Zojirushi rice cooker this year and have never looked back. I make a big batch of rice as soon as we land knowing that it will serve as the basis for many of my initial reset meals

• Rice and eggs. This could be scrambled eggs and some furikake for breakfast or a runny egg with some pickled veggies and avocado for lunch

• Fresh fruit that I haven’t been carrying around in my pocket for my toddler all day in hopes that they choose it over another popsicle

• Lots of sautéed dark leafy greens like kale or collards cooked in olive oil and garlic

• Pepto bismol with a couple of crackers

• Steamed sweet potatoes and carrots. On rice. With miso butter (mix softened butter with miso and add to warm rice)

• Vegetable soup over couscous

• Chicken soup because someone is probably sick after air travel

• Tums as a late night snackypoo

• Lots of cut up crunchy vegetables ready to be eaten (basically to reset my brain from immediately assuming all snack options come in the form of a bag of chips or whatever half eaten bar Loosha handed to me so that I could hold it for her)

• a general policy of water > coffee

• Lentils in some stewed form, usually Dal

• Roasted vegetables to be eaten with tahina

• Beans. I like to cook various sizes of white beans (canellini and northern) with a bunch of olive oil and a parmesan rind and eat them straight up or with vegetables and some bread

• Water

• My Gochujang Salmon Recipe

• Cold sesame noodles with too many peas

Roasted cauliflower with a fennel, kumquat and radish salad, tahina, toasted whole spices

Want to make this reset dish?

The building blocks are essentially:

• roast a vegetable, in this case cauliflower was blanched and then rubbed with olive oil and salt before thrown into a ripping hot oven until browned

• make a salad with crunchy fresh vegetables, here I had fennel, radishes, kumquats and I dosed them in olive oil, lemon, and salt and let sit while the rest gets made.

• mix up 1/4 cup of raw tahina with the juice of half a lemon and drizzle in ice water until desired consistency is reached. Salt to taste.

• heat some ghee in a pan and toast a handful of whole spices in it for 15 seconds until fragrant (known as chhonk or tadka). I used cumin seeds and fennel seeds with a touch of spicy chili. Be careful not to burn.

• plate your crunchy veggies, top with your warm roasted, drizzle everything with your seasoned ghee and globs of tahina. Eat with a big piece of toasted sourdough or some seedy crackers