Motel Life - a Remembrance
Back in the day, I enjoyed the motel lifestyle. Here’s a little blog post/diary entry I wrote about one of my trips to the midwest when I was still married. For context, I was only just getting into the food blogging world, and I hadn’t yet discovered the joy of independent eateries. If I was to visit the US now, I would still do it with a hungry stomach, but with a more scheduled idea of where to eat. Also, I was not vegan back then, but I have added links to recipes from some of my favourite dishes experienced, that I veganised later on.
I found the motel chain of our choice comfortable and generally as reliable as a pair of old slippers: they are dotted around the country at convenient intervals and supply us with a free continental breakfast.
I’m not entirely sure at what point bagels, waffles and blueberry muffins become continental but I’m not complaining.
Bagels heavily laden with cream cheese and grape jelly are a real taste sensation, particularly when you wake up, your first morning in the country, bleary-eyed and achy from the 9 hour flight. Compared to airline food, this continental breakfast is positively Michelin Star rated.
It thrilled me that the further south in the US you go, the continental breakfast alters from the bagels to ‘make your own’ waffles: a fun little gadget that you fill with the waffle batter mix then turn halfway through cooking. It looks like a medieval implement of torture but what it produces couldn’t be further from the truth. Liberally doused in maple syrup and whipped butter, the fluffy, hot waffles are a far cry from the reconstituted potato waffles that we have for breakfast over here. (Here’s my vegan waffle recipe).
Don’t misunderstand me. Not all their motels are A1 quality. I once stayed in Albuquerque which, whilst it was a large suite (always a worrying sign when you’re given the suite for the same price as the budget room), had some unsettling stains on the settee and infested bed-linen which seemed to move in anticipation of fresh blood to feast upon. Coupled with the 12 year old girl who shared a lift with us, carrying a huge plastic box filled with drugs of kaleidoscopic variety, we couldn’t wait to split at the break of dawn, following a sleepless night, jumping at the sound of gunshots and constant activity in the corridor outside our room.
But I digress. Whilst it is a real pleasure to find your bed made for you when you return from a busy day visiting family members and/or relentlessly shopping, it becomes a drag having to eat at restaurants every lunchtime and evening. However, I made the best of a not-that-bad-all-things-considered-really situation, and attempted to try a different eatery every day. Here then is a brief timetable of where we ate, what we ate and what we thought of it for the money:
Arrive Wednesday 11pm. Peanut butter and choc/hazelnut cookies made by my American ‘Mom’ who was waiting at the motel for. I am too tired to be tearfully grateful for these luscious morsels of biscuit heaven but suffice to say they are devoured within the next couple of days. I secure the recipe.
Thursday: Nothing planned, so I use this opportunity to go shopping and check out any new culinary seasonings that we can’t get over in Britain. I already have coconut essence on my list so am overjoyed when I find it nestling between the butter flavouring and pure vanilla extract which is less than half the price than over here. For some reason I also buy a tin of crystallised ginger. I must remember to now find a use for it.
I lunch at Panera’s Bread. There are several Panera’s dotted throughout the country but this does not detract from a cosy style and intoxicating smell of freshly baked bread. The soups are all heavenly: baked potato is my personal favourite but there is also Mexican corn soup, chicken noodle, chicken with wild rice, French onion, chilli cheese, roasted garlic with tomato, broccoli cheddar, various low-fat options, served either in a substantial bread bowl or in a sturdy large cup with a great hunks of freshly baked crusty baguette on the side. An alluring selection of cakes, made on the premises, are also on display. I replicate their baked potato soup when I return home.
Soup and bread is surely one of the foods of the gods and I could easily eat it every day, so nourishing and comforting it is. Little wonder does the word 'companion' derive from the Latin for 'To share bread'. It is one of the most organic feeling and satisfying meals, and also quickest prepared, that you can rustle up in the kitchen.
Our stamina for consuming vast quantities of food is soon tested as we meet up with friends and are rushed to a local Italian restaurant. I have eaten there in the past and was not all that impressed with the food. I found it tasted a little bit too mass-produced for my liking, despite it being an independent restaurant. Perhaps I have prepared too many traditional Italian dishes from Anna Del Conte and Marcella Hazan books over the years to be tolerant anymore.
I implore restaurants to add a tiny pinch of sugar to their tomato ragu: it makes so much difference. So many tomato sauces, particularly in England where we only have a limited season for delicious ripe tomatoes, are sour. The sugar is as essential a seasoning in a tomato sauce as the salt. Even a quickly knocked up sauce is elevated with this ridiculously easy piece of tweaking.
Not surprisingly we are still stuffed from lunch but curiously order the soup of the day. I choose the pasta e fagioli, a delicious soup that I have prepared myself at home. It is rib-stickingly rustic, a traditional Italian concoction of borlotti beans and little tubes of macaroni called ditallini. It is heavily redolent with rosemary and the most luscious, glossy soup you could ever hope to eat. When the soup arrives I have already lubricated my jet-lagged brains (and tongues) with a couple of whiskey sours and am now retelling hilarious stories of horrible houseguests and arguing about movies. It would seem that even the measures are larger here
Belly full, and then some, I spend the evening in food-free revelry (although I am peckish later on and have more of those delicious peanut butter cookies back at the motel room. And some Cheetoes). It is a fun evening.
The next day I awake craving burritos, the delectable Southwestern equivalent to sandwiches: really, tortillas stuffed to breaking point with scrambled egg, fried chorizo or breakfast sausage (similar to chipolatas), fried potatoes, guacamole, sour cream and salsa and rolled up. Unfortunately, we are far from a decent Mexican Cantina open at 9.30am, so hungry desperation forces me to McDonalds who do a very basic, very small and very unsatisfactory breakfast burrito.
Proper burritos are easy to make at home and you can add any number of ingredients as your store cupboard dictates: my favourite is grated potatoes, fried hash-brown style, in butter, added to avocado, salsa and some good vegan cheese, oozing with sour cream and some really hot, homemade salsa. Do not forget the refried beans.
Hungry within 5 minutes, we make plans to go to a Mexican restaurant, Tequilas, for lunch. Unfortunately, our plans are scuppered, so we all pile around our friend’s house instead and order take-out pizza from Rocky Rococos. With the exception of the Gourmet Pizza Company in Colorado (who prepare a sublime Perogi pizza, the name has no bearing on the actual toppings, but the potato, sour cream, spring onions and green chili combo rocks my world every day).
There is no feeling in the world quite like biting into a hot slice of pizza, through layers of browned and bubbling mozzarella (which generally skedaddles off the pizza and onto your chin, leaving you with a skin condition that resembles pash-rash), through the tangy/sweet tomato sauce and through the gently doughy crust. Heavenly. I am reminded of the ritual breaking of bread.
Sharing a pizza - a gaggle of hungry heads all leaning forward to tear off a slice - must surely be the 20th century equivalent.
Later on and I'm still peckish. Pizza isn't a meal but a hearty snack. However, I need more sustenance! I am craving cheesecake. I buy a slice of New York cheesecake 'With Sour Cream Topping!' from a nearby supermarket but it really tastes horribly synthetic. I leave the rest in the bin back at the motel room and ponder on where and what to eat for lunch tomorrow, whilst munching on those delicious peanut butter cookies...