We were away for nine days, and we did not spend two nights in the same city/town. So, I did a lot of driving, with my best girl navigating because Siri wasn’t getting the job done on her own. And my best girl was very calm, even when she was not entirely sure her mother was capable of making it from the New Jersey Turnpike onto the George Washington Bridge. And that was before we realized the rental car did not have the automatic lights feature, so we were driving in the dark without headlights, and I just can’t recommend that to anyone.
But we made it. And now we’re home, ready to sleep in our own beds and get back into a regular schedule, particularly with respect to eating.
In nine days of travel, my daughter and I had only six proper meals (meaning food served on plates and requiring silverware). Three dinners and three lunches, spread throughout the trip. No; I’m not kidding. Everything else was snacks grabbed here and there, eaten on the run.
But those six meals were delicious — good enough, and different enough, that I’ve come home inspired to cook this week. Also, I’m too tired to write about much of anything other than food. So here are some thoughts for the week ahead, if you, too, feel like cooking this week.
And if you don’t feel like cooking but do feel like reading, but you don’t want to read anything too heavy or serious, then I’ll again recommend The Plot, by Jean Hanff Korelitz.
The inspiration for this list includes a lovely late lunch at the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, where we saw the Titian exhibit. More on that exhibit another day. The lunch was a simple salad with lovely greens, cold salmon, thinly sliced radishes, chickpeas, and a bright Green Goddess dressing. Swoon.
Here’s the list:
Roasted Carrots with Farro & Chickpeas (Cookie & Kate)
Luco Lefebvre’s Roasted Carrot Salad (NYT Cooking)
Rigatoni with Easy Vodka Sauce (bon appétit)
Lemony Salmon and Spiced Chickpeas (Epicurious)
Green Goddess Salad with Chickpeas (Eating Well)
Risotto Milanese (NYT Cooking)
Carbonara Flatbread Pizza (A Fork and a Pencil)
Perfect Pizza Margherita (Food and Wine)
Arugula Salad with Olive Oil, Lemon and Parmesan Cheese (Food Network)
Deborah Madison’s Lentil Salad with Mint, Roasted Peppers, and Feta (Food 52)
Jambon Beurre (Food 52)
jenny's lark 
Now you know what our lives are like, except it’s on a bus and we do it over about 130 days spread over 8 months. Oh, and our days are upside down.
If The P school in Jersey is in the mix, I have some well placed friends there.
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I listened to Brandi Carlile’s memoir on the drive to Minnesota in August (12 hours – but 100 times easier than that hellscape of the NJ Turnpike, which I used to navigate in the regular but hadn’t driven in about 20 years). It’s a great book, and her description of the touring life stripped off all the glamour. I don’t know how you guys do it, particularly with kids! Yes, P is on the list. Thank god H isn’t (though she did like other schools in Boston, and we got to visit the Gardner while there).
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It sucks. I always say touring is no way for anybody to live. Now, I rep a second famous player, MCC. BTW, she graduated from Brown. We were trying to figure out how I could tour with both. My dear one said that we could pull the buses together and I could just change buses. Thank you. 18 months of never coming home. There are two ways to deal with it… the minute you get a break and you’re awake enough to enjoy it, go to someplace like a museum. That and mess with people outside of the tour group. Like this… often we take Ralph the tour poodle with us. The tour manager gives us keys to our rooms and we walk though the lobby to get to the elevators. Often some desk manager will say, “Sir, you can’t bring a dog in here.” I reply, “This isn’t a dog” and keep walking. He didn’t know that we’ve been pre-approved. Theres one thing that I know.There are so many of us living out on the road that whenever we get together it’s like a group of combat vets visiting. Any band who you once liked when they were popular ar still out there working.
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I’d completely forgotten she went to Brown. She’s one of my favorites, and she keeps getting better as time marches on.
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Her last studio album is her best. NJ says I work with her so I can talk to an actual adult.
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[…] the links I posted a couple of days ago (chick peas, Green Goddess dressing, oh my…), I made a hearty dinner salad was very easy, […]
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