“What I” Wednesday: In Transit

November 30th, 2011 - filed under: The Food » Food Styles

We drank our green juice in the car on the way to the airport.


Last week, the Rebhals flew away – out of the blustery northwest and into the sunny south. Our adventure from Portland to LA took us a total of ten toddler-filled hours. It was actually pretty darn great, as Damian and I began the day mindfully, with an attitude of “It’s either going to be fun, or it’s going to be funny!” In other words, if things go well then we’ll enjoy them, and if things go badly, we’ll just laugh at ourselves. Setting that intention went such a long way.

I love sharing my travel days because I like to disprove the myth that you can’t eat healthy/vegan while on the go. We ate delicious and nutritious foods all day long! It looked something like this:





Up At Dawn


I can’t bear to leave a cluttered crisper, so I’d already juiced any and all remaining veggies the night before. This blend was jam-packed with kale stems, collard greens, broccoli stalks, cucumbers, celery hearts, and a carrot. Tip: Covering the juice with saran wrap like this will keep it from oxidizing (reacting with the oxygen in the air), and thus retain the maximum amount of nutrients. Make sure to let the cover touch the juice – you don’t want any air in there!


I also packed up the rest of our eats.


Coffee & Nibbles



Rice cakes with cashew butter.


Damian had his own rice cake and I split one with Mr Waits, somewhere over Mt Shasta. This was flight number 1 of the day.


Layover & Lunch

A clementine for my cutie.


We had a couple of hours to kill at the Oakland airport, which was a perfect opportunity to enjoy the lunch I’d packed. The boys got wraps, with spinach + Field Roast lentil slices + vegan mayo for Waits, and spinach + Field Roast lentil slices + avocado + mustard + vegan mayo for Damian.

Waits’s little bird bites (I helped him finish this).


I was stoked to dive into an awesome salad, which had been sent to me by the good folks over at Earthbound Organics.


Please allow me to deviate for a momentary product review. I think these salads are fan-freaking-tastic, and I’ll tell you why. Because they’re vegan! Seriously, that may sound crazy, but do you know how hard it is to find a vegan pre-made salad? It’s literally near impossible. (They ALL have cheese, or meat, or both!)

SO, I love that Earthbound Organics has come out with these all-vegan, plant protein-focused “Powermeal Salads“. It’s actually sort of my dream meal: a ton of greens plus a hearty serving of protein. There are three flavors and the Tomatilla Black Bean was my hands-down favorite. SO GOOD. The Cranberry Wheat was pretty awesome, and the Blueberry Quinoa (which I ate on this day) was fair. But I would definitely buy any/all of these again. Obviously, I’m not so big on packaged foods, but it’s really great to know that there are tasty, HEALTHY vegan options to grab-and-go, at any grocery store, at any time. I think this is actually a really big step!

Okay, moving on . . .


Landing!

My two best boys, fresh off of flight number 2, waiting for the rental car shuttle.


What a long, long day of travel. But we were nearing the end! We just had to make it from the plane to the auto . . . via bus. Gah!


During the shuttle ride Waits demended food in the form of a Larabar. Coconut flavor, blurry pictures, tired folks (wavering between “fun” and “funny”, I’d say . . . )

But once we got our car (Subaru Legacy sedan, love!), things began looking up. We hit a Starbucks for afternoon/evening refueling (not pictured), and we were on our way, bound for Santa Monica and one of my oldest and bestest friends.


Dinner


Amber took such good care of us! We started with margaritas and guacamole. Amber and I got all caught up (we did our research together in college!) while the boys played with the baby.





Dinner-making was a long and lazy process, punctuated by laughter, reminiscing, sharing, laughter, team-making guacamole, cook book peering, laughter, and lots of excited chatter. I wish every cooking experience could be so lengthy and filled with love!

Dinner itself was pretty spectacular.




Black bean and butternut enchiladas with a mole-style sauce, and damn I wish I had a better picture, because it seriously SERIOUSLY does not do this amazing meal justice. So good!

We were having so much fun that I completely forgot to photograph our dessert. Here’s the evidence though:


Cardamom-persimmon sorbet, and coconut-lime sorbet, with candied almond slivers. Waits had a banana.

*sigh*

Oh so good, so incredibly, amazingly good. We went to bed with bleary eyes and very happy bellies. It was a long day, a stressful day, but damn it was a good day!

~~~




So fast-forward to the following Thursday – Thanksgiving! I wore this vintage dress that I picked up at a thrift store in Ventura California, for $10. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a vintage frock that a) accommodates these buxom breastfeeding boobies, and b) is nursing-friendly (button front), and c) is actually cute + fits me? Like, IMPOSSIBLE! But this dress is darling and I love love love it. Gingham for life!



  • Blue gingham dress: secondhand
  • Black shiny belt: borrowed from my auntie
  • Black leggings: ancient, from Target
  • Black engineer boots: secondhand



So, how was your Thanksgiving? Did you manage to eat well while you traveled? I’m on day 9 away from home, and I’m relying on green juice to keep me up to snuff. What’s your secret for staying healthy on holiday?

  • Savannah

    I love that Waits eats super healthy foods. I’m trying to convince the baby I nanny for (I almost said “the baby I eat” D:) to chomp on some kale but so far, no dice. And I’m now addicted to Lara bars, thanks to you posting them! I <3 this blog. It's helping me get my eating on track.

  • Bridget

    I cannot believe you were in ventura!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i lived there less than 2 months ago & was just there. miss it so much. did you stop by buffalo exchange for that sweet dress?

  • http://twitter.com/felicitates felicitates

    Oh goodness that all sounds so yummy! Question though, I thought gelato wasn’t vegan? Isn’t it made with milk and eggs? Although, I suspect it might have been a vegan-made gelato!

  • Lindsey

    I was just thinking today about how “food on the road” tends to derail me-I always eat junk so this was an inspiring post for me. Question: How do you pack your on the plane food? A little cooler? or something else?

    Also, I love your T’giving outfit!

  • Heather McGregor

    Any chance for a recipe??

  • Annie

    You’re lucky, we’re not allowed to take fresh foods on planes – quarantine laws for fruit fly and other stuff. Them’s the rules when your country is an island… Even on domestic flights (?)

    Your travel food is *much* better than mine. I just stake out the Asian market / central market for goodies.

    Also, I love those boots. I have been searching for ones similar, but they’re always ‘almost what I want’. And I have – as my also small sister says – ‘freakishly tiny’ feet so it’s kinda hard to find stuff that fits in ladies sizes sometimes. And all the kids shoes have fugly stitching or like gendered skulls (like with bow ties or love heart eyes? What’s up with that?) or other various stuff that sucks. In short: nice shoes.

  • Lou

    hooray for gingham :)

    It’s such a myth that you can’t eat healthy why travelling… you just have to be organised. I travel all the time (with a 12 month old, on my own) and we do fine, eating yummy vegan treats and staying happy (well, most of the time :) ) If you don’t laugh at yourself, you might scream or cry, so I’ll stick with laughing too.

  • http://twitter.com/keephealthstyle Laura Agar Wilson

    Love that dress, so cute! My lifesaver when travelling is snack bars like the Lara bars (we have some called nakd bars in the UK) fruit and chopped veggies – then at least I know I have something healthy I can eat and fingers crossed I’ll come across something ok in a shop to bulk it up!

  • http://twitter.com/lixo00zero zerowastelifestyle

    Love the outfit and loved the virtual trip to South California. What the….? No bananas on the road? Hang on a minute, I spy a banana peel in the last photo…….. guess young Waits is really over bananas?

    My oldest daughter says the banana is nature’s lunchbox-all wrapped up and ready to go…..

  • http://brokencookiesdontcount.wordpress.com/ Fran@BCDC

    Wow, I love the way you planned out things for your day of flights! i’m flying in 2 weeks and I need to make a plan!

  • Jen Cywinski

    Love your outfit! We drove out to Iowa from PA for my cousin’s wedding the week before thanksgiving and brought sandwiches and a bag of apples from the orchard with us. We all felt so much better with fresh apples to munch on.

  • http://windycityvegan.wordpress.com Monika {windycityvegan}

    Love that dress! I wore something very similar to work yesterday (except my dress was black). I find that as long as i have comfy leggings and boots, I’ll wear dresses that I wouldn’t wear any other time of year.

  • Natalia Giesler

    I you still happen to be in the socal area you MUST go eat at Au Lac Vegan Living Foods in Fountain Valley. Its AMAZING!!! Seriously some of the BEST food I have ever tasted hands down. Their “bar” is different non alcoholic elixirs, juices, smoothies, and mixers (my fav is their soda cahn which is sparkling water, agave, and lime. This sounds super simple so I have tried to replicate it at home, but my homemade version does not even come close to their yumminess lol). Whenever I go with friends we order a bunch of stuff and just share because everything is so great! The humanese living soup is one of our favs. Their raw desserts are better than any “regular” I’ve had. The chef is extremely passionate about his food and hugs patrons as they leave. The atmosphere is warm and inviting and all of the servers are patient and knowledgeable and I cannot say enough good things about this place. Half the fun too of Au Lac is socializing with the other awesome patrons. :) Check it out if you can, I know you will love it! http://www.aulac.com Hope the rest of your trip is amazing!

  • http://www.tiedyefiles.com Kaitlyn@TheTieDyeFiles

    I love that dress! I’m amazed that you got it at a thrift store. The color just pops and it fits you perfectly!

    Thanks so much for the carrot juice tip. I often make my juice at night for the next day so this will be perfect. Your time with Amber sounds spectacular, how wonderful that you were able to catch up! It’s been far too long since I’ve seen my old friends.

  • Jessica @ Whatwouldjessicaeat?

    Looks like you were able to eat well, even on the road! It’s all about planning!

  • Hitomi

    What a lovely dress! The food is great, but it’s hard for me to follow that…
    I was wondering if you could write something about how to eat healthily but in an easy way?

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    Have you tried giving the baby juice/smoothies? Waits is not so into eating veggies, but boy does he love to drink them!

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    That’s where I got the dress! =D

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    You are right! It was sorbet, not gelato – thanks for the heads up, I’ll change it!

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    I just cram it all into my 50 lb purse of doom, haha. I don’t worry too much since we eat all the perishables within the first few hours. I’m pretty relaxed about that stuff though, especially being vegan.

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    Sorry, my friend did the cooking!

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    I have the opposite problem – my feet are freakishly HUGE!

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    Waits is definitely past the banana-love, but he still goes for one every now and then. =)

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    Dresses + leggings + boots is my favorite cold weather uniform. I need more cute vintage dresses!

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    Oh I missed it, but next time! Thanks for the tip! =D

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    Which parts seem difficult?

  • Savannah

    She’s a wee bit too young to get the hang of a straw. She keeps biting and throwing her sippy at this moment, but we’ll try that when she’s able to go for the straw. If I make the ratio of kale to rice cereal in the rice cereal’s favor and have it cover up the kale, she’ll eat it, but her face speaks volumes about her happiness. I guess I can’t complain too much – kale is only eaten in my house in the form of chips!

  • http://windycityvegan.wordpress.com Monika {windycityvegan}

    Yes, that’s my winter uniform, too! I’m also glad I saved a few skirts that aren’t quite age appropriate on their own anymore, but when paired with leggings + boots + a really interesting vest/jacket/deconstructed cardi, they suddenly have a new life. That red plaid Britney Spearsesque super short skirt I bought on a whim ten years ago to wear clubbing? So suddenly appropriate with leggings, pregan docs and a bulky sweater.

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    Yup, so true! I’m actually kicking myself for getting rid of some of my old clothes. I could totally have reworked them!