Vacation condo cooks up memories and kitchen adventure
When readers ask me how I like to spend my vacation time, the answer is usually the same: in the kitchen.
And if I have the opportunity to spend time away from the work desk, or a weekend in someone else’s even more modern kitchen, compared to our retro-trapped-in-time farm kitchen, that’s even better.
The summer months tend to be our busiest time at the farm, since garden harvests and picking available farm fruits for canning and freezing require immediate attention.
However, last month, I slipped away for a fast one-weekend respite in honor of my pal’s 40th birthday. He, just like my older sister Pam, is a great fan of timeshare condo vacations, and over the past 10 years, I’ve traveled with both of them for the experience, though I’ve never owned any of these types of travel-ownership arrangements myself.
With two other friends along for the birthday adventure, my responsibility (as the author for four published cookbooks) was for the cooking and meal and menu arrangements. This is where having a full condo with elbow room in the kitchen trumps even the largest hotel suite.
Doing his homework, my buddy picked Branson, Missouri, as our weekend group getaway since it is where he also spent his 30th birthday.
And after much research, Paradise Point was his preferred Shangri-La.
He chose it because he liked that the resort is under the umbrella of KOALA, co-founded a decade ago by young entrepreneur Mike Kennedy as CEO, and applauded because of the destination’s roomy designs, a massive kitchen and an
impressive high ceiling “great room,” along with other added home-awayfrom-home bonuses as explained at www.go-koala.com.
Some cooks are never at home cooking in an environment other than their own kitchen.
My two decades of doing cooking shows and on-location demonstrations have taken me to theater stages, at festivals and fairgrounds pavilions and often even face-to-face with makeshift kitchens in parking lots, at schools as well as in contrast to cooking before large audience venues such as Taste of Chicago and a Navy Pier. To be in the controlled environment of a magazine-spread worthy, picture-perfect posh kitchen landscape seemed like my own early birthday gift.
Cooking is relaxing. I liken the experience of
cooking and baking during vacation days away, to the great star-studded tales I’ve reported for years courtesy of the luminaries who performed at
Star Plaza Theatre. These iconic headliners stayed in the lavish celebrity penthouse overlooking the lobby and its indoor waterfall pool at the adjoining Radisson Hotel in Merrillville. Despite the many restaurants on property, stars like Liberace, Patti LaBelle and Johnny Mathis all preferred to do their own cooking while staying in the penthouse when booked to perform their string of concert dates at this stage-claimto-fame of Northwest Indiana, until it was razed in 2018.
Besides cooking for their own famous appetites, those stars also liked to cook for their friends and traveling entourage, since the Radisson penthouse included a full
formal dining room with an elegant glass sprawling table which could easily seat 10 hungry guests.
While my traveling mates enjoyed the indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts and miniature golf, my vacation cooking duties last month included preparing a hearty breakfast with (extra-strong) freshbrewed coffee to welcome mornings. My book editor Kathy has a favorite and easy lemon muffin recipe which never disappoints. And when there happen to be any muffins left (which is rare), they also travel well.