Complete! Here are photos of much of what I ate on our camping trip. What is not shown is the less interesting food, such as rice cakes, apples, cheeze-its, and more rice cakes. Thank goodness I didn't bring my spicy nut-butter. So, here it goes:
Day Twenty four: Half Moon Bay
A large part of this trip was centered on a specific destinations, the first (and possibly most important to Jesse) was Happy Taco in Half Moon Bay. We both have been vegetarians - or pescatarian rather - for a few months, but Jesse's mouth salivates at the thought of HT's carne asada burrito. It just might be his favorite thing on the planet. So we had to stop, twice - once on the way up and once on the way down - to satisfy this craving. I remained steadfast in my non-flesh eating and ordered the only thing on the menu that was vegetarian. How Mexican food establishments do vegetarian is beginning to be a litmus test for how interested I am in returning to this place. If you just throw rice, beans, and iceberg lettuce on a tortilla and douse it in sour cream...you really aren't trying. Oh well.
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| Lunch: vegetarian tacos |
Jesse loves bringing his cooking toys on camping trips. I think he enjoys the juxtaposition of being in nature, immersing himself in the wilderness, absorbing the outdoors with eating and sleeping with the same luxuries we find at home. Hence the wonderful meals we had each night.
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| Dinner: cornmeal crust pizza |
Day twenty-five: Half Moon Bay to MacKerricher State Park
I woke up and went on a fantastic run. It coursed along the bluffs overlooking the ocean and wound between sand dunes.
Now, lunch left something to be desired. I was routinely disappointed with vegetarian options up north. Granted, we grabbing quick car food, but still.
Oh but dinner....
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| Breakfast: pear |
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| and coffee. |
Now, lunch left something to be desired. I was routinely disappointed with vegetarian options up north. Granted, we grabbing quick car food, but still.
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| Lunch: the shittiest salad ever |
Oh but dinner....
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| Dinner: spicy red curry with veggies and prawns and a side of cornmeal cheese bread |
Day Twenty-six: MacKerricher State Park and the Avenue of the Giants in Redwood National Forest
Lunch was a mildly better salad than the day before. The half of beer afterwards certainly helped.
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| Lunch: garden salad |
Then look at this delicious spread:
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| Dinner: cornbread, salmon, and skewered vegetables |
Day Twenty-seven: MacKerricher State Park to New Brighton Beach in Santa Cruz
Now this salad was delicious. It was from the deli at New Leaf Market in Half Moon Bay while Jesse was on his second burrito. I have since tried to replicate it at home.
P.S. These amino acids are my new favorite thing.
Last Supper:
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| Lunch: Kale salad with various nuts and amino acids |
Last Supper:
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| Dinner: Salmon steaks and skewered vegetables |
Each night there was also plenty of S'more action, just in case you were worried.
Day Twenty-eight: Homeward bound!*
I don't think I ate dinner that night.
Finally, Day twenty-nine.
What do you think the first thing I ate was when I got home?
And of course, true to form, I forgot to take a picture of dinner. It was my usual at the Mexican restaurant.
I was craving a veggie sandwich the whole time we were gone. Everywhere we went just didn't have what I had in mind. Then we found a natural foods market in a tiny town near Pismo Beach. I had to wait until 4:00pm to eat lunch, but it was the best damn sandwich.
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| Lunch: vegetarian sandwich with cheese, sprouts, tomato, pepperoncinis and onion |
I don't think I ate dinner that night.
Finally, Day twenty-nine.
What do you think the first thing I ate was when I got home?
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| Breakfast: love that nut-butter |
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| Lunch: an attempt to replicate the above salad. Kale, sunflower seeds and amino acids |
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| and some grapes! |
So.
What have I learned? What have I noticed? I don't stray much. It's funny, because I have always known myself to go through phases of liking certain foods; that is certainly evidenced in the last twenty and nine days. Some of my patterns seem ridiculous, at least when they are made glaringly obvious. I am surprised by some of the staples in my diet though. Kale for one, or really, the sheer number of salads. I really had no idea. I am amused by my consumption of rice cakes and then the variety of 'toppings' I use to jazz them up. I think part of this comes from not having much in the way of culinary instinct, so it is easier to stick with basics. I branch out from time to time, and try to make a dish, but then I tend to just make that one thing - or variations of it - over and over.
Well, one of my goals this summer is to master a few dishes and make some sense of flavors and spices that I can add to simple meals to make them more interesting. Maybe in the next two months, my repertoire will will expand, but until then my grocery will probably look the same.
See you in July.
*If you are interested in actual photos from our camping trip, you can visit my Flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ladyhypatia/
