The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
VACATION MOM’S NEW ROLE
On her family trip to the Pacific Northwest, the AJC’s food and dining editor Ligaya Figueras learns how her role as vacation mom has evolved. Once upon a time she was responsible for emergency snacks, but now she’s become her son’s cocktail consultant.
Folks, I am fresh from vacation. You know what that means? I spent money on stuff I didn’t need, slept in cramped lodgings, and ate overpriced food. So, to get my money’s worth, I need to relive it by talking about our family travels, pulling out my phone and scrolling through zillions of photos for any willing audience. Look, mountains! See that beach? Get a load of that sunset!
I’ll spare you the talk of how we slept in an Airbnb RV — or happened upon the grossest gas station bathroom ever in Aberdeen, Washington — and keep the chatter to food, which is easy, because, whether vacation takes you to beaches or mountains, theme parks or national parks, every day involves calories.
Summer vacation took us to the Pacific Northwest. An eight-day whirlwind visit to the Olympic Peninsula, Victoria, British Columbia and Seattle was supposed to be a last hurrah of sorts before our newly graduated sons fly the coop — one with a college diploma in hand and a real job awaiting him, the other to begin college come fall.
We drove the more than 300 miles that skirt the Olympic National Forest, rode more than 100 miles on ferries, cycled in and around Victoria, and hiked 1.5 vertical miles near Mount Olympus. Food was a part of practically every step for me. Why? Because I am Mom, de facto feeder of my clan. Well, I thought I was. I have been, for the past 22 years. But, after this trip, I realize that role is coming to an end.
I wonder if I’ll ever shake the diaper bag mode, toting around snacks, juice boxes and an assortment of toys to distract whining toddlers. I’m so used to taking preemptive measures to ensure sustenance that, when we go on rare family excursions these days, I still revert to mommy mode and pack an emergency food bag, as if my kids were 2 and 6 instead of 18 and 22.
Turns out, they are perfectly capable of preventing the “hangry” themselves. Now, I’m the needy one. Guess who kept rooting through the emergency food bag? Guess who whined when there was no trail mix? Guess who was the only person to need water on a onehour hike?
My usefulness as Mom has morphed. I’m now a cocktail consultant for my older son. It’s the strangest thing to sit down at a restaurant and watch Alvaro peruse the drink menu and pepper me with questions about mezcal, shrubs and sherry. It’s stranger still to see him drink. Especially perched at a bar, as he was at a Greek restaurant in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood, while we waited for our table to open up down the street at Salare, the restaurant from Edouardo Jordan, recently christened best chef in the Northwest region by the James Beard Foundation.
Salare is the only place where I made a reservation, because I didn’t plan the trip as a food tour. (The exception: a visit to Seattle’s Pike Place Fish Market, so we could get salmon tossed over our heads.) Yet, I still was supposed to know magically where to eat when hunger struck, such as when we drove through Tacoma on our way to the Olympic Peninsula and Alvaro claimed to want a huge breakfast, so he’d be fueled up before tramping around the Hoh rainforest. “Mom, where can we get a really big breakfast?” I’d never set foot in Tacoma. He’s the one holding a computer science degree — and a smartphone of his own.
Being Mom, however, I couldn’t but pull out my own iPhone and make my son happy by hunting down Marcia’s Silver Spoon Cafe, an old-school greasy spoon spot that serves comically large portions. An order of waffles brings four of them, with thick layers of whipped cream slathered between the stacks, and blueberry syrup doused over it all. Alvaro settled on the Silver Spoon Scramble, a massive mound of hash browns mixed with scrambled eggs, diced ham, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes and shredded cheese. For an upcharge, they’ll top it with gravy.
Being Mom on vacation also means still managing leftovers, like the three plastic containers it took to hold the remaining 10 pounds of the Silver Spoon Scramble. Being Mom on vacation also still means stashing plastic utensils, napkins and unused packets of mustard and mayo into the emergency food bag, because, when home base changes every day, you carry pantry essentials with you. My husband and I questioned whether the Lipton tea bag in our hotel room was “freely given.” Yes, we decided. Into the emergency food bag it went. The kids rolled their eyes through it all.
As the kids get older, it appears that we are doing an increasingly better job of embarrassing them. Salare has a shelf full of coffee table cookbooks by big name chefs. Leave it to my husband to be the annoying guy who pulled a book off the shelf, which required reaching over the heads of the couple seated next to it. My boys tried to turn invisible as the couple glared at my husband, who reasoned that, if a restaurant is going to put cookbooks on display, the books are fair game as reading material for patrons.
The kids have wised up to the fact that their parents are good for two things: money and embarrassment. They may not need me like they once did, but, at least there’s still my husband to look after.
An early return flight meant waking up at 4 a.m. The emergency food bag was empty, except for two apples that I handed to my sons, who were traveling on a separate flight. We wouldn’t touch down in Atlanta until 2 p.m. I had 10 minutes to spare before boarding. Time enough to restock the bag.
“Joe, do you want anything?”
“No,” he grumbled, saying something about just wanting to sleep.
I bought a bunch of breakfast burritos, yogurts and trail mix anyway. By the time we hit altitude, he’d scarfed down a burrito and yogurt. When Delta Flight 2409 touched down in Atlanta, neither of us was hangry — and I had enough trail mix left in the emergency food bag to last the MARTA ride home.
Wanna see a few photos?