Making the Big Easy a Little Easier

So here I am in gorgeous New Orleans trying to bring my gluten-free macro life with me. This city uses butter for crude oil, so this is no easy task. When I did my customary pre-trip "gluten-free" "vegan" restaurant searches, I was met with resounding silence. I had a really rough time living in Nashville eating out, and that was WITH a lifetime of knowledge about the city and the secret restaurants and hang-outs.

Here is my strategy for traveling macro:

1. Search for local restaurants and grocery stores that cater to the health food community. Even rural Mississippi has one or two vegans.

2. Plan on packing a suitcase entirely devoted to food. I stock up on things like microwaveable veggies, brown rice, and healthy snacks from Trader Joe's.

3. The night before, do all your cooking and bring a cooler as your carry-on. This is how I usually travel with relatively "stable" dishes, like greens-based dishes or squashes. Daikon radish is not, was not, and will never be a "stable" dish. From the second it leaves the frying pan it smells like the recently exhumed dead, and it will earn you a special place in the heart of Homeland Security.

I stuff my suitcase with macro goodies like microwaveable brown rice and packets of tuna fish, and strap granola bars to my person like Rambo straps bullets. Last year when I flew up to stay with May in Boston, she told me I stashed granola bars like a drug mule.

Here in New Orleans, my plan is to stick to lots of steamed fish and vegetables. I'm allowing myself to eat omelets because I had my miso this morning, but I'm really trying to stay away from dairy and sugar, because I sure as heck am planning a stop on Bourbon Street. It would be wrong to pass it up. It's New Orleans, for crying out loud!!

Just remember. The great thing about using your luggage for food is that as you eat, you make room for all the new stuff you buy shopping.

I am studying for the GRE's right now. There's nothing graduate school testers love more than word-based math problems. Here's one for you:

Becky packed a 11" x 4" x 22" tupperware container of nishime vegetables. The combined cost of the ingredients was $17.

After eating the nishime, Becky puts a box of Kate Spade Aggie Shoes in Yellow, size 10.5 in the suitcase in a box that is 7" x 6" x 23". The cost of the shoes was $298, and worth every bleeding cent for that matter. How much more per square inch did the Aggie shoes cost than the vegetables?


And the real question... with cute shoes like this, does it really matter?