Welcome to our Vacation Cooking and Food Tips page!

One of the things that John & I really enjoy when we're on one of our vacation holidays is mastering the condo or timeshare kitchen so that we can enjoy eating the way we do at home. This is especially important to us, because there are a few things that we eat and drink on a regular basis - both because we enjoy it and because it's healthy.

As an example, every single morning, we squeeze fresh lemons and oranges and mix them with water. We've been doing this on a daily basis (with missing only a few days, rarely, here or there) for nearly 15 years. The lemon and orange mix is the first thing we have in the morning. It is so refreshing! 

We have a plastic travel reamer for when we're going on vacations, and a glass reamer for regular, everyday use. Although it may be difficult to find the kind of reamer that allows you to retain all the pulp, you can find one at an antiques store (or yard sale - that's where we got ours!) for a reasonable price.

Almost everywhere we go, it's easy enough to find a store that has lemons and oranges, so the only thing we really need to pack and carry is the reamer.

By the way, we use the travel reamer for a LOT more than just morning juice. We make lots of meals that call for fresh lemon juice - whether it's a roasted cauliflower, a pesto, chicken piccata, or other meals.

It's a staple in our kitchen - whether it's our home kitchen or a timeshare condo kitchen. And yes, when we are packing - even following our own travel packing tips advice - we are able to easily fit our travel reamer in our bag. I would leave shampoo behind before I left my reamer - ummmm... probably because it's easier to find shampoo on the road than it is to find a reamer! :)

We will be building this page, along with pages that include recipes and vacation cooking ideas and tips over the course of the coming months. If you have read through any of our vacation review pages, you'll likely notice that we enjoy various ethnic foods.

Well, that goes for our cooking as well.

For example, we REALLY enjoy eating and preparing Indian food, and thanks to some good friends who really introduced us to Indian food, have learned several wonderful techniques and recipes that we find we MUST have when we are away from home - especially since we now split out time between New England (summers) and South Carolina (winters).

One of the ingredients we use most of all - whether it's cooking Indian food, Thai food, or Chinese food - is Great Organic Coconut Oil. Frankly, we buy this stuff by the gallon. It lasts a long time, and is a very healthy oil.

A lot of people believe that it's bad for you, but this is a myth. My purpose isn't to try to convince you about the benefits of coconut oil (and by that, I mean HIGH quality coconut oil) - so, if you would like to read more about it, visit the Nutiva site here, you can learn all about coconut oil.