Naptime on the Road: Eating & Traveling with My Family

One of my favorite things about my year as a flavor correspondent for Sargento is discovering all of the amazing food trucks springing up within ten miles of my house. Turns out Southern Connecticut is a hot bed of food truck entrepreneurs. I LOVE it! To please my daughter, last week we decided to visit a truck popular with both adults and Kindergarten set – Skinny Pines Pizza. It was a Friday night and we were in the mood for an easy dinner that everyone would love.

If you even hint to me that there is a fresh lobster roll in my immediate vicnity I am there. Seriously, a good roll is one of my all-time favorite foods. Especially in the summer. So, when my husband came home last month and told me that the new LobsterCraft food truck was in the area for the afternoon I threw the kids the car put the pedal to the metal. No matter that it was the last snowstorm of the year (I hope!), I wanted me some fresh lobsta!

One of the many things I miss about living in New York City are the food trucks. They always served the most delicious cuisines and were the perfect spot for grabbing a quick lunch or dinner. I lived there during the food truck trend explosion and nearly every week an awesome new truck would burst on the scene. By the time we moved out of the city there were hundreds of trucks serving nearly every kind of food on the planet! I was never at a loss for something new to try. Luckily, it hasn’t taken too long for the food truck trend to spread to the suburbs. Our little town in Connecticut even has one food truck, Christophe’s Crepes. Christophe is a jolly frenchman who parks his truck outside our local library. My daughter and I eat there at least once a month. We usually combine it with a trip to return her library books. Here are some shots of our recent trip over the weekend:

I am so excited to share the third installment of my trip to Thailand from last February. The purpose of this entire trip was to explore Thai seafood on behalf of Sea Cuisine. Having been to Thailand once before I was thrilled to have the chance to return. This post chronicles our last day in Bangkok before we traveled down the Phuket to experience Southern Thailand. We had the great fortune of eating the most amazing shrimp dumplings and fresh cut noodles I’ve ever tried. It has been almost ten months since our visit and I still think about them!

I am so excited to share the second installment of my Thailand Travel Series. As you may recall, I traveled to Thailand last February on behalf of Sea Cuisine and had a blast exploring the seafood offerings of this fantastic country with my friend Nicole. This week Sea Cuisine posted my articles about our second day in Bangkok and the AMAZING food we had at some out of the way restaurants after a cruise down the Chao Phraya

Last week on Martha’s Vineyard my family and I took some time to enjoy the island between book events. We strolled the streets of Edgartown, took boat rides along the coast and cooked lots of great food. Over the course of our vacation we enjoyed several delectable dinners that took very little effort. We focused on simply prepared super-fresh seafood, easy sides, and, of course, wine. Here are some of our favorite menus from vacation. I hope they each give you a little taste of a true New England summer.

We’ve been up in Cooperstown this week getting in the summer frame of mind. It’s been nice to take a break from our busy camp schedule and spend some time with my parents. Cooperstown is a lovely place all summer long but I’ve always felt that June is one of the best times of year to visit. Town has a pre-tourist calmness, each day is a perfect 75F, and the lake is just coming alive with ducks and fish jumping everywhere. On Monday we even launched our little boat. Also, by June our local Farmer’s Market is booming with terrific goodies from the farmer’s and artisans in the region. It is one of our favorite places to visit. Here are a few of things we have to look forward to seeing this summer!

I am so excited for my book signing in Georgetown tonight! While I get ready I thought I’d stop in with a favorite recipe from Thailand. As you’ll see in my posts on The Seafood Spot, my friend Nicole and I instantly fell in love with Tom Yam Goong, the national dish of Thailand, upon first sip. We adored the spicy, sweet, citrus flavors and embarked upon soup wars for the bulk of our trip. We ordered it nearly every where we went comparing recipes from restaurant to restaurant!

I am so excited to share the first of many blog posts from my trip to Thailand with Sea Cuisine. I hope you all enjoy reading about my seafood eating adventures as much as I enjoyed the trip!

We first glimpsed Bangkok at night as our car inched through thick late night traffic to the hotel. The streets were alive with locals doing their daily shopping at the dozens of night markets for food and clothes, endlessly bargaining for a better deal on this or that. Despite the steamy night heat the atmosphere was vibrant, intense, and cheerful. Down narrow streets people stood next to stalls eating small healthy meals: steaming bowls of noodles with shrimp, skewers of fish balls with chili sauce, and bags of fresh chilled pineapple. They spoke with each other as they ate, presumably catching up on the day. If we hadn’t been so totally exhausted from the plane ride we might have jumped out for a quick snack ourselves. With all bowls of fresh noodles and freshly roasted fish staring us in the face we could hardly wait for our Thai seafood quest to begin.

I just can’t get enough of Charleston, South Carolina. Last week we made our third annual trip to see my parents and had a total blast. We visited a lot of our favorite spots from 2009, ate with our friends from 2010 and hit some of the must-sees from 2011. Be sure to check them out if you are in the area sometime. This year our vacation was not all just playing and eating, this time there were some awesome book events too. Here are some of the highlights from my trip last week:

I am excited to report that over the next few weeks I’ll be rolling out a whole new travel series based on my trip to Thailand for Sea Cuisine. I can’t wait to share everything we did on our trip. You can expect to read about plenty of seafood, sites and beaches! I’ll also have a few webisodes for you to enjoy. Stay tuned and here is a sneak peak! :

We got an iPad for Christmas and I have totally fallen in love with it. I never thought they were a big deal, but now that we have one I’m not sure why we waited so long to get it! One of the first things I did on December 26th was load it up with some foodie apps I’d been hearing a lot about. Of all the ones I bought there have been four I’ve been turning to constantly for information and inspiration over the past few months. I’ve even find myself turning to them on the road when travel! If you are in the market for an awesome, parent-friendly, foodie apps here are a few I highly recommend.