The listing said "full kitchen." In practice that meant a four-burner electric stove with two burners that worked, one nonstick skillet scratched down to bare aluminum, one big pot, a coffee maker and a drawer of very dull knives.
We spent three nights in a rented two-bedroom condo in Galveston last week, Monday through Thursday, and I cooked most of our meals in that kitchen. It was a good trip. It was also a good reminder of how much I depend on a sharp knife and a pan that holds heat.
What I packed from home
We drove down in the van, about five hours with two stops. A cooler and a laundry basket of dry goods rode in the back with the suitcases. Food from home came to about $58 by my spreadsheet, most of it things we'd already bought:
- A dozen frozen breakfast burritos from the batch of thirty-two I made for this trip, still frozen solid when we arrived.
- A pound of cooked taco meat, frozen flat in a quart bag.
- A big container of pasta salad made the night before.
- Sandwich bread, peanut butter, apples, Goldfish, granola bars, a jar of pickled jalapeños from the backyard plants and a bag of Matt's coffee.
I also packed my 8-inch chef's knife, wrapped in a dish towel and rubber-banded to a small cutting board, the same way I used to carry knives to catering jobs. Matt thinks this is funny. Matt also borrowed it twice.
Biscuit stayed home. Tuan and Lisa across the street let him out and fed him morning and night, and their girls reported that he spent most of the trip lying on Rosie's bedroom floor.
What I bought on the island
The first afternoon we stopped at a grocery store on the island and spent $112 on everything else: milk, eggs, tortillas, shredded cheese, fruit, deli turkey for beach sandwiches, chips, a case of water, Gatorade, ice and the makings of a shrimp boil. Two pounds of Gulf shrimp were the biggest line on the receipt.
A few things on that receipt I'd skip next time: $8.40 of cherries that got squished in the cooler, and a second bag of ice we didn't need because the condo freezer made plenty.
What we ate
- Monday night: tacos from the frozen taco meat, warmed in that sad skillet. Everybody was too sandy and sunburned to care.
- Tuesday: burritos for breakfast, sandwiches on the beach out of the cooler, and a shrimp boil for dinner in the condo's one big pot, with red potatoes, corn and smoked sausage. Newspaper on the table, a roll of paper towels and five very happy people. Eli ate the corn and the sausage and restated his position that shrimp look like bugs.
- Wednesday: eggs and toast, the beach again, and dinner out at a seafood place on the seawall. Fried shrimp, a fish plate and chicken strips for Eli, at a seafood restaurant, which may be the most Eli thing that has ever happened. It came to $96 with the tip.
- Thursday: the last burritos, pack up, and sandwiches from the leftover bread on the drive home.
Small kitchen, same rules
A tiny kitchen with a toddler underfoot turns clean-as-you-go into a survival skill. There was one stretch of counter about three feet long. I set it up the same way every time: board on the left, stove on the right, and every bowl washed the minute it was empty, because there was nowhere to put a dirty one. The shrimp boil happened on the one working big burner, so I cooked it in stages in the same seasoned water, potatoes first, then sausage and corn, then the shrimp for the last three minutes. It worked fine and left exactly one pot to wash.
The condo didn't have a high chair, so Rosie ate in the cheap booster seat we'd brought from the garage. She liked it so much that when we got home she refused the high chair entirely, and it's in the garage now. I guess that chapter is over.
The one dinner out was the most expensive meal of the trip by a mile, and it was worth it. Nobody had to wash a pot, and the kids got to watch the water from the window. But if we'd eaten every lunch and dinner out for three days, my rough guess from that one bill is well over $500. Cooking in a bad kitchen saved us real money, and the shrimp boil in the condo was the dinner the boys still talk about.
Receipt check: $58 from home, $112 on the island and $96 at the restaurant, $266 for three nights of food for five. The $96 goes in the restaurant column; the rest counts as groceries.
