THOSE are the stories I’m looking for. That’s so awesome! It’s so cool how much you can do with so little.
There really are so few excuses out there. If you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way. Parents providing for their children definitely answers that.
What I’ve started doing, if I don’t have something I have to go to when I land, is ordering my DoorDash while I’m in the Uber from the airport, so my meal arrives to the hotel about the same time I do.
Not exactly on topic, but I haven’t been as proactive as you on my travels. I did used to eat canned tuna mixed in instant grits 4-6x a day when all I had was a microwave. I eventually snuck in a hot plate and a Foreman grill, and I would have 2 chicken breasts (because that’s what for) and a boil-in-bag bag of brown rice twice a day. This was a long time ago though.
We’re skipping the microwave, but if anyone is interested, Chef David Chang loves it. "To a naysayer who questioned the microwave’s effectiveness and deemed its use lazy, Chang replied ‘you are correct. I am lazy and you are a fucking dumbass.’”
You can get clever with the other things. If you have a fridge, you can make overnight oats, ceviche, no-bake protein cookies, shit like that. You can use the dishwasher as a working-class sous vide machine since the water has to reach 140 f to sanitize dishes. Eggs, veggies, fish, lean cuts of meat all work.
This is what I’d do. Use the slowcooker bags and then be a scumbag and return it.
A paninni press is also suprisingly versatile.
Anytime I eat at Denny’s I feel like I’m cheating on Waffle House.
I had the opposite problem. My wife was worried her future husband would expect her to be able to cook. She met me and thought “Fuck yeah, problem solved.”
Anyway, back to hotel rooms. You can make soups in a coffee maker. You can use the iron as a hot plate with a cheap pan. If you have a sunny window you could probably use a portable solar stove in a pinch.
My stepbrother got kicked out of college because he set the dorm’s bathroom on fire trying to thaw frozen beers on a hot plate.
Strangest thing I ever did was “borrow” an unguarded hotdog cart from Duvaul street at 2 in the morning and use that for a few days in the hotel room.
In hindsight, I do feel bad about that. I did put it back though.
@TrainForPain We thought about trying to nail that Uber/Uber Eats thing the last time we flew in to San Diego. And those Foreman grill chicken breasts are all too real. You take a piece of meat with no fat on it, and then you grill it on a “knock out the fat” machine, haha. I actually almost sprung for a Foreman grill to solve my hotel thing, but I couldn’t figure out a decent way to cook eggs on it, and since I’m still running the Vince Gironda diet, eggs were a non-negotiable. And though I CAN microwave eggs…I really don’t want to.
@Brant_Drake I TOTALLY forgot about the dishwasher trick! I remember learning about that on an episode of Home Improvement. I should totally do that next time. I DID contemplate using the iron to grill at first.
The soups in the coffee maker is exactly how we did ramen in college.
And I absolutely love that hot dog truck story, haha. What did you end up cooking in it?
I think I remember that episode. I liked the guy who made “Shish-ka-billy-bobs” with his oil dipstick and cooked it on a hot engine block.
The hotdog thing was great - it had a steamer so we did veggies, fish, eggs, and dumplings from the store in that. The other half was supposed to be a hot-water well, but we just ran it dry and cooked chicken for tacos and quesadillas, then obviously endless chili-cheese brats.
It was a step up nutritionally. The morning before I had something like 30 raw sea urchins and a bottle of sangria for breakfast. That was when I didn’t take eating seriously on vacations though.
I tried cooking oats in the hotel coffee maker once. (I think chef Alton Brown recommended it.) Tasted like strong burned coffee even though the machine was clean. Never again.
