Elaine's Blog:
Following the Just Tell Me What to Eat! Plan

Dr. Gourmet and Road Food

In the last week, I attended the annual meeting of the Medical Library Association in Minneapolis and visited the Mayo Clinic library in Rochester. A note about Rochester: the town embraces a healthy lifestyle. Then Don (my husband) and I began our vacation: camping at Perrot State Park in Trempealeau, Wisconsin and cycling around the area, taking care of our Chicago home and visiting with friends for a few days, and by week's end, we'll be at the Pedaler's Jamboree, a 2-day bike ride on the Katy Trail (with entertainment provided by The Ozark Mountain Daredevils). Sound like fun? Here's how I'm managing my meals while on the road:

Restaurants

I printed Weeks 1-4 restaurant suggestions from the book, Just Tell Me What to Eat. Between Rochester and Chicago we saw a Panera restaurant from the highway and stopped there for lunch. Of the three suggested menu items, the one which was available was the clam chowder and large fruit salad which also came with an apple! It was a very satisfying lunch. Of the two other items, one was not available at that particular Panera and the other item was no longer on the menu (the chicken had been changed).

Annual Meeting Eats

When served beautiful platters of food and lovely desserts while being regaled by fascinating keynote speakers, what does one eat? All of the vegetables and salad and no more than a little of the protein, starch, and dessert was my strategy. I decided in advance that it would be OK to have one glass of wine, but not two, and I stuck to that rule for the most part. A good substitute for wine is soda water with cranberry juice and lime served in a rocks glass. The buffet line selection was problematic. It was hard to know what the lovely items were, let alone what might be in them. A saving grace was that they were small. I just did my best... the conference only lasted four days.

Camping/Cycling

I love to sleep and cook in the great outdoors, but this trip does not allow for preparing food at the campsite. We made a fire, but did not roast marshmallows with Ghirardelli Caramel chocolate smooshed between Graham crackers (as would have been the case previously). We purchased bananas to eat with our Justin's chocolate hazelnut butter before our morning cycling trip in Tremealeau on the Mississippi River. It's a delicious way to get protein which is probably verboten.

Along the way, we stopped for coffee and I ordered a scrambled-egg-on-bread sandwich. I forgot to ask the cook to hold the butter, so I received a greasy egg sandwich on a buttered English Muffin. Note to self: it's OK to tell people that I... have dietary restrictions, shall we say? Perhaps the caloric expenditure of hilly cycling made up for my lapse in judgment.

Eating in with friends

It is tricky to navigate meals prepared with love by friends. I'm just being prudent with regard to consuming foods with larger-than-necessary amounts of sodium and fat. Like the delicious quiche my friend Robbie made for breakfast today. Or the date bars she made for dessert last night. I'm going to cook for Stan and Robbie two nights we are here, so I'll be back in control on those days. This is a vacation, after all, and this is a lifestyle shift, not a diet. So I'll just continue navigating my way though food on the road.