Vacation Cooking

We just returned home from a week at the beach. We rented a beachfront condo with a glorious view of the Atlantic and close proximity to the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island. We are veterans at packing for rental cooking. We have experience with the not-so non-stick pans, knives that won’t cut butter, missing or non-existent corkscrews and a general lack cooking utensils. We had packed our traditional rental items which includes:

• Cast-Iron skillet
• Knives and sharpener
• Small cutting board
• Wooden spoon
• Spatula
• Grater or micro-plane
• Corkscrew
• Oyster knife and rubber mitt
• Garlic press
• Vegetable peeler
• Ziploc bags

This rental, however, was particularly devoid of the customary amenities. The furniture looked like leftovers from the Watergate era, a counter bar with no bar stools and a ubiquitous dining room set with a bamboo motif. The kitchen equipment was sad at best. Everything was plastic; the spatulas, serving trays, even the whisk was plastic. The dishes were Corelle which was popular when “Saturday Night Fever” was in theaters. Made by Corning Glass Company, the dishes are made of “thermally-bonded, laminated tempered glass.” While they may be stronger than standard dinnerware, they are thinner and by far, well, cheesier.

Our accommodations, such as they were, necessitated a trip to Goodwill where we purchased a set of 8 real plates, a pasta pot, a cutting board (that wasn’t glass), and a set of highball glasses – all of which we left for the next guests. There were no bar stools at the Goodwill store that day or we might have indulged ourselves. Once we had the items we needed to actually be able to cook, we managed seven wonderful meals including shrimp étouffée, steak and smashed potatoes, orecchiette with Italian sausage and broccoli rabe, pan-seared snapper with tomato salad, and sautéed grouper with browned rice. While cooking the meals yourself does save money, that is not the reason we do it. There is nothing more enjoyable than recounting the day with your family without ambient noise or waiters interrupting your conversation. Delicious food, good company, a little jazz and the sound of the surf in the background; that’s a vacation!