Cookaholics Bulletin Board

We travel a lot, and often if we're going to be any place for more than 3 days, we rent a house or apartment instead of staying in a hotel. It's more spacious, comfortable and secure, and it lets us cook some of our own meals, which means eating cheaper and better.

However, vacation rental kitchens always have very random equippage, often having some odd items (milk frother) while lacking basics (cutting board). For those who do vacation rentals like I do, how have you gotten around this?

I'll start: in Rapid City, the place we were staying didn't have a garlic press or a good cutting board. This made pulverizing garlic for salad dressing and marinade rather a challenge. So, I:

1. Coarsely chopped the garlic
2. Put it in a coffee cup
3. Sprinkled it with salt
4. Took a mixing spoon with a fat handle, and used the handle to mash it.

How have you improvised for travel cooking?

When we travel by car, we have a bag that we always take. In it we keep: 2 sets of silverware, insulated tall car cups that can be used for hot or cold (i.e. have secure tops and holes for straw), espresso maker, a Ziploc for coffee to which we add food savered coffee right before departure, packets of Splenda, small containers of salt. pepper, and depending on the planned length of stay we also add food savered granulated garlic, oregano and cumin. While I prefer fresh garlic, Penzey's granulated garlic works well enough to not hassle with fresh. We also take small bottles of good olive oil and balsamic. I got the little bottles at Cost Plus, then refilled with my own and put them in very small Ziplocs just the size of the two bottles. We also have qt. and gallon Ziploc bags, a small sponge and a travel size bottle of Palmolive dish washing liquid (We always have a roll of paper towels in the car). Also in the bag, a good pairing knife, small wood cutting board (fits in a gallon Ziploc), (a Forschner Santoku goes in for stays a week or longer). If we are flying we just take the Aeropress, coffee and Splenda and buy milk when we arrive. If at all possible we always stay in rooms with refrigerators and microwaves.

We rent houses a lot in the winter. If we drive I take an assortment of knives, a container of herbs and spices, coffee, sugar, a small amount of flour and kosher salt. Usually a pepper mill as well. Sometimes even a few gadgets like a garlic press, it depends on how long we will be gone.

If we fly, I wing it. I have gone to a dollar store and purchased a cheap plastic cutting board, cocktail glasses, dish towels & paper towels. I just leave the items for the next guests. It is awefull cooking with thin pan and crappy utensils.

If you are only there for a couple days it's probably not worth the trip to the dollar store, but we are usually there a week or more at each house. We tend to move around to other locations so we rent a couple different houses.

Laurie

I do stay in condos in Colorado's mountain resorts rather frequently. Since most of them are high-end, their kitchen package is pretty standard and mostly good. The one thing that always drives me nuts is that they never sharpen the knives, so I always bring my own. Fortuantely, I am driving, so do not have have to deal with TSA.

I just make do. We have been fairly lucky with rentals and I only do simple things that I plan after seeing what is there. I love getting houses or apts. besides the restaurant money saved, it is just so much more comfortable. I have had good luck with vrbo and air b'n'b.

Mary

We've learned to have low expectations. Typically there's a skillet and a pot and some means of making coffee. But when you're someplace like Venice you're willing to eat more meals out anyway. The once exception was the Paris apartment - everything as you'd choose for yourself, including an LC pot.

Pete,

Oddly, the one place we've been where the equipment in the kitchen was very good was Rome. Although the kitchen itself was miniscule ... as in, it was a big cabinet that you folded open to use it.

Our flying travel kit consists of: a 7-day pill minder with 7 spices in it (usually cinnamon, nutmeg, oregano, thyme, paprika, cumin and coriander), a Y-peeler, 1 measuring cup, a set of measuring spoons, 6" chef's knife, paring knife (assuming checked luggage). If we're driving, we tend to take a lot more: espresso maker, coffee & grinder, more measuring cups, french rolling pin, large non-stick pan, plastic cutting mats, etc. Partly it depends on what we expect to make.

In the future, I'll bring a grill spatula and tongs anywhere which advertises having a grill; I've been to 2 places now which had good gas grills but no grill tools at all. The one in Rapid City even had a note cautioning me to "Make sure to use only the metal spatula on the grill", but supplied only a soft plastic spatula.

Oh, that's another improvisation: if you have no grill tools, and you want to grill fish, buy one of those cedar grilling planks. You can use a regular size tongs to pull it off the grill, and you get a nice cedar-smoke flavor.

If I'm not flying I will take a knife, Thermapen, and a cake pan. I have, on occasion, thrown in the kitchen scale (takes up less room than measuring cups). We have some friends we visit frequently and I've bought them a decent knife so I don't have to worry about that if we fly there.

6" knife sharpened before leaving, Starbuck's VIA decaf (about 20 packets), cork puller, unbreakable wine goblets

I have a tool box which contains everything I could possibly need from a utensil point-of-view. When we're driving somewhere, it comes with, along with my SV circulator. If I'm flying and checking a bag, I bring a less expensive chef's knife and pretty much make due from there.

Amy