Vacationing with multiple food allergies is a nightmare. At least for us, when we're on vacation we are more active and adventurous than normal. We've hiked, kayaked, and snorkeled across parts of three countries now. We need to feel great every day! Thus, we must find a way to eliminate any chance of food contamination when traveling. The simple solution? Rent a condo! This was our first big vacation in a condo, and we loved it. I'm not sure we'll ever return to hotels.
The best part about our condo on Maui was the view. I'm not sure most restaurants on Maui could guarantee us this kind of show:
The second best part of having a condo is an opportunity to really sample the local foods. I'm not talking about a bite of poi and poke at a luau. I'm talking about real, locally-grown, heirloom fruits, vegetables, and meats. Across the street from our condo was a daily produce stand with a wild variety of fresh summer produce. That's right, in January we were eating local zucchini, green beans, tomatoes, eggplant, purple sweet potatoes, and strawberries. Plus, we had our fill of local heirloom bananas called apple bananas, strawberry papaya (a non-GMO papaya variety. Most other varieties have been corrupted by GMO varieties planted), pineapple, passion fruit, star fruit, and mango. And then there was the citrus, like pomegranates, limes, lemons, and oranges. In short, I'm ready to move.
The kitchen was well equipped, for a rental kitchen, right down to the metal garlic press. One item missing in particular was a metal loaf pan. They only had glass. This is why I don't recommend baking bread in a glass pan:
To be fair, the oven was also broken. But still, bread should never look like that after being in an oven for two hours. The oven also ruined the brownies. It was sad:
But, we survived without baked goods for the trip. The meal list:
Spaghetti with GF pasta
Tacos with sprouted corn tortillas
Stirfry with brown rice - without soy sauce :(
Fresh grilled Mahi Mahi with grilled vegetables and sweet potatoes
Fresh grilled Walu with grilled vegetables
The meal list starts with meals we commonly eat at home, and slowly shifts towards less common meals made with readily available foods on Maui. Eating tacos is great, unless the tortillas cost more than the meat. And let me tell you about insane food prices! I paid $13/lbs for "natural" chicken breasts. Ouch. Thankfully, neither of us can digest milk. That saved us $8 a gallon. By eating simple meals with all local ingredients, we were able to stick to our food budget.
Most every day was started with a fresh fruit smoothie, made with whatever fruit we had on hand. Fresh banana was almost always an ingredient and coconut milk made regular appearances:
Lunch was usually a salad, except for the last day. I went all out and made a pasta salad with grilled eggplant, grilled tomatoes, and steamed green beans (and EVOO and lots of garlic). I topped it with a hunk of leftover Walu. Fantastic!
Dinner was always started after a long walk on the beach at sunset. We were completely spoiled. I'm so ready to move.
Of course, I forgot to take pictures of most of the meals, so I can only leave you with this to inspire jealousy:
I'm counting down the days until strawberry season. The Wenatchee farmers promised me some in April. We'll see if that happens.
