Moms and Food

Chill Out

 When I was growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, throwing any food away was cause for such a smack. No matter if it was heisted potato chips, "borrowed" apples (you're going to have to read the book, My Mom Invented Bad Food, to get to the bottom of those references) or too-salty meatloaf, we Thomas kids ate every bite on our plates or suffered the consequences of a swat and a guilt trip.

The dreaded culinary double whammy.

I suspect that fetchin'-up regimen used by my mother had something to do with both my clean-plate attitude and my hip measurement today.

Well, that and the fact I eat all organic. Everything -- spices, condiments, dairy, meat, produce, even chocolate -- that passes my lips is certified organic and pricey. And throwing organic food away is at least triple the guilt trip of conventional stuff. Trust me.

When I travel, I haul my food with me. Virtually all of my trips are by car, and I have developed a cool packing technique that involves two recyclable bags, one for the dog's snacks and one for mine, that go on the floor below the passenger's seat.

Then I have a standard-issue, zippered cooler that holds canned food, the aforementioned spices, my recyclable cutlery and dishes and my can opener. Another cooler that plugs into my car's accessory module (in the olden days, kiddies, they were called "cigarette lighters") keeps my milk, orange juice and yogurt cold and my cheese from melting. When I am eating chocolate -- which I am not at this time -- it keeps that cold as well. The coolers are stowed in the car's hatch.

So right now I am in Columbus, MS, three days into a 2,300-mile drive to South Florida. And I just finished yet another yummy dinner of canned beans heated in a hotel room microwave and topped with cold cheese cubes, oregano flakes, ground turmeric and shoyu. And corn chips. Can't forget the corn chips. Mmmmmm.

What made it even yummier was the fact that my cooler, a 5-year-old, two-six-pack-capacity beauty with telescoping handle and wheels, is once again among the 12-volt living after a rather miraculous resurrection last night in Texarkana, AR.

It died on Day One, somewhere between my Canon City, CO, home and the Texas Panhandle town of Dumas. Thinking it was gone forever, I stopped at the Dumas Walmart and bought a new cooler. A much bigger cooler. A fuse-blowin' cooler.

Initially the new beast worked fine, humming in the Subaru hatch and keeping the milk, yogurt, etc., from reaching room temperature. But along about Claude, TX, the humming stopped. And by Clarendon it was obvious I was in deep trouble. Warm yogurt. Not good.

The next morning, Day Two, I stopped to exchange it, but the Childress, TX, Walmart didn't have a smaller sized cooler. Neither did the next three towns' Walmarts or Targets. And by 5 p.m. I knew that my electrician gifts were being called into action, first to change out the car's blown fuses.

Yep. Silver-haired granny under the hood.

That handled, I bought an accessory plug and a roll of electrical tape at an auto parts store and, with an out-loud prayer, wired that sucker onto my old cooler. Then I plugged it in. And when the fan started turning, I heaved a big sigh of relief and set about fixing dinner.
 
Tip: Always, always, always check for polarity. In the case of a cooler, wait about 45 seconds and then open the lid. If the interior is hot, you've reversed the polarity and need to rewire. Otherwise, if you're a child of the Fifties and Sixties and remember getting such a smack for not cleaning your plate, you'll find yourself with curdled milk, juice that's separated and some very angry yogurt.

It very nearly happened to me, but I remembered my own tip and checked the inside temp of the cooler, which in five minutes had hit about 95. I was not the only thing going south at that point.

But my cooler head prevailed, and so did my cooler. In the end, the juice was cool, and the yogurt remained relatively tame. 

And after a long, hot day, I was able to completely redefine the phrase "chill out."

And, of course, clean my plate.