The Soy-free Kitchen Goes on the Road

Traveling is hard. You have to plan. I didn't plan when we visited two colleges with my older daughter this weekend, and I literally did not know where my next meal was going to come from. However, I decided it was not going to be a problem because I still have to lose--ahem--a few pounds.

Friday morning I drank coffee and ate a bagel and got into the car. At the last moment I grabbed some bread from the house. We visited one college Friday morning, and they gave my daughter a free pass to their cafeteria. My husband and I paid to eat there, too. For $8.05, I found 1.) cottage cheese, 2.) canned peaches, and 3.) Diet Coke. I could have had 4.) milk, but I didn't want any since I was eating cottage cheese.

Friday afternoon we drove to the town where college #2 was, checked into a Marriott Residence Inn, with a kitchen in case I had to cook. [Hint: book a place with a kitchen when you travel. It costs more but it evens out because you (can) save money on eating out.] We checked the tourist-y literature and picked a nice restaurant in the downtown. Good choice, they had a broiled seafood platter with steamed vegetables and soy-free mashed potatoes, and a very nice motherly waitress who made sure I could eat and not get sick. Score!

My husband and daughter each ordered dessert. There was nothing I could eat, so I had an Irish coffee. Those are always soy-free, as far as I can tell.

The breakfast at the Marriott turned out to have boiled eggs, oatmeal, V-8 and fruit juices, and of course coffee. Score again. [Hint: make sure you get to breakfast early at these places so people haven't dipped serving spoons from things you can't eat into things you can. Remember the cross contamination problem.]

We stopped off at a grocery store on the way to the second college open house and bought some cheese and whole-wheat crackers. [Hint: bring ziplok bags when you travel. ] I put some crackers in one ziplok and some cheese in another and stashed them in my pocketbook. Good thing. The only thing I found to eat at the second college's cafeteria was Diet Coke and an apple.

We came home and had whole-wheat waffles and turkey breakfast sausage for supper. College #1 had had a waffle iron right near where I was sitting, and boy, did they smell good! But waffle mix has soy, and so does the non-stick spray.

Lucky for me I came down with this adult-onset food allergy after I got out of college. I don't know what I would have done if I had had it during my college years.