Eating down to the wire

We are racing to our departure for the old world with frightening speed, and my list of things to do before we go seems to be getting longer, not shorter. Experience dictates that at some point, the tasks will recede and we will lock the door behind us, but experience also tells me that I need to undertake some serious food preparation strategies.

It's always lovely to come home to a home-cooked meal. Conversely, it's really gross to come home to a fridge full of fuzzy food. So we have entered that Twilight Zone of leftovers, trying to combine what's fresh into relatively edible concoctions. Last night, some potato soup got a couple of sausages and half a quart of chicken stock thrown in, along with some fresh artichokes (first of the season!). Tonight, I'll be trying to incorporate some beans and quinoa into a tempting side dish.

Creating a meal for ourselves on our return is fun: we try to choose something comforting and heavy on vegetables, moist and refreshing. Things will be in the freezer, ready for popping into the oven while we shower. Before we leave, we'll change the sheets so fresh beds invite us. We'll also make sure that there is some breakfast food for the next morning, as we will be up long before the sun, and long before the real stores open.

I also have to pay attention to the flight itself. Airline food has a well-deserved reputation for being unpalatable, as well as unhealthy. First up, we try to order special meals, since not eating on a ten-hour flight isn't realistic: one kid's meal (usually heavy on the sugar, but tends to have a lot of variety); one pure vegetarian (so we have something not smothered in cheese--I always laugh at how they provide diet margarine for this meal); one ovo-lacto vegetarian (there's usually a fair amount of cheese and egg here); and one fruit plate (we don't need a lot of calories, and fruit can be refreshing). I'm not expecting to be able to eat any of it, since in addition to wheat, dairy and eggs, I can't eat pineapple, bananas, peanuts and hazelnuts.

So yes, in addition to this "normal" strategy, I'm planning to bring my own food. The looks I got from the TSA agent when I packed a chicken salad on the last flight was pretty funny (yes, she even opened the deli container to determine it wasn't a gel or liquid), but I'm planning on bringing dried fruit and nuts, an avocado and a selection of 'energy' bars (Luna Sunrise are tasty and made with real food). I'd love to bring things like juice, but there's no way we can fit it all in the regulation Ziploc bag. (As an aside, it appears Europeans are having a bit of an issue with the baggies when they fly here, as they're not readily available over there. Seems they form an iconic part of our culture.)

Last up is to put together a shopping list of things to buy our first morning over there. We will be staying in a 'self-catering' apartment in Dublin, and they usually provide what they call a welcome packet, which consists of soda bread, Irish butter (of course!), black tea and milk. We'll be arriving late, so our flight stores will have to last us through breakfast, until we find the nearest Tesco or Sainsbury's. If shopping when you're hungry is not a good idea, shopping while jet lagged is a recipe for disaster, so we try to make the list up in advance. It's hard to know what the stores will have, so we tend to put real, whole foods, like apples, potatoes, rice, oatmeal, and Green & Black's drinking chocolate on the list.

And yes, I will board with a bar of some decent chocolate for my mental state.