Taking the Low Road

Think of food prep as part of the adventure.

I know what you’re thinking. “Fix food on my vacation?? Not a chance, sister!”

Hey, I’m with you. In fact, I can beat you at the non-cooking gig. As a rule, the kitchen is not the room where I hang out. In my early Mom Years, our kids thought a typewriter was a kitchen appliance. Now, in the Empty Nest Era, I’m the only woman I know who has to dust her stovetop. I don’t watch cooking shows. I don’t ask for other people’s recipes and, oddly enough, no one ever asks for mine. Go think. Eating is something I do to stay alive so I can do other things. Food prep? Something I do so that I can eat so that I can stay alive so that I can do other things.

Got it? I . . . DON’T . . . LIKE . . . COOKING . . . except when I’m in the Scottish Home Exchange mode because then, I’m not in my usual hike-up-the-skirts-and-run mode. I’ve noticed just living in someone else’s home and working in their kitchen gives me a different attitude toward food prep. And when I get to buy fresh-from-the-farm veggies in a quaint green grocer’s shop, dicker over lamb chops with a Scottish-brogue butcher, select baked-this-morning bread at a local pastry shop, and walk home with it all poking from my daypack (like a real European), I feel . . . like I’m a Scots woman living in Scotland – not the dreaded Ugly American.

Furthermore – here’s where it gets way weird – I actually enjoy rummaging around in a foreign kitchen, looking for the sieve, the vegetable peeler, and the bread knife as my husband and I prepare our evening meal. Seeing how someone in another culture does things and adapting to those ways makes even food prep downright exotic. Who knew cooking in someone else’s kitchen could be so much fun?

And furthermore – again – changing into comfortably loose lounge clothes after a packed day of touring and then eating leisurely by ourselves in peace and quiet just can’t be beat. At least, that’s what we think. And that’s before we factor in the huge cost savings.

It seems to us that most U.K. countries have done a more thorough job of limiting the number of discount stores and bland restaurant chains than the U.S. There’s good news and bad news here. The good news is that there are still plenty of thriving mom-and-pop stores, tea shops, pubs, and restaurants with a wide variety of good food on offer. The bad news? They’re all expensive – before the exchange rate. Depending on the year we traveled, we’ve had to multiply menu prices by 1.69, all the way up to 1.89 one year. While the rates are a tad more favorable for Yanks these days, you may still choke (we fainted) if you’re like most middle-class Americans accustomed to Denny’s . . . or Lenny’s . . . or whatever non-descript eatery you frequent most often here in the States.

When you prepare your own evening meal in a fully equipped kitchen in a foreign country, you not only save money, you learn a lot, run into more locals (who like talking to Yanks, for some reason) while grocery shopping, and feel more a part of the culture – all with a great deal more tranquility – than when you dine in a hotel that caters to loud-mouthed American tourists.