For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Now we’re home, and every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

Hi!

After writing last week’s entry about London, I had to make Shepherd’s Pie.

It’s one of my children’s favorite dinners, relatively easy to pull together, and one of the few dishes I don’t have to separate into components for my youngest daughter (recipe below).

The only problem was that summer had arrived early, and the sweltering weather made the dish feel...off.

And then I remembered: early summer peas and carrots. Problem solved!

I hedged a little when I showed our babysitter dinner.

“Well, it’s a bit out of season. Guess I’m not ready for summer yet!”

She shrugged it off. “Nah, Shepherd’s Pie always lands.”

And apparently, it did. Barely any of the dish was left.

Next time, I’ll make two.

A note on the name: as our London hosts Pippa and Peter informed us, there is a key difference between Cottage Pie and Shepherd’s Pie. Cottage Pie uses beef. Shepherd’s Pie uses lamb. Otherwise, the ingredients are largely the same.

My simplified ingredient list:

• About 2½ pounds Russet potatoes

• 1 stick butter (or vegan butter), plus 1 tablespoon

• ½ cup whole milk (or plant-based milk), plus more as needed

• Salt to taste

• 1 pound ground lamb (or beef, for Cottage Pie)

• 1 small yellow onion

• 2 cloves garlic

• 1–2 small to medium carrots

• ¾ cup fresh peas (or frozen)

• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (or gluten-free)

• 1 cup beef, chicken, or vegetable broth

• 1 tablespoon tomato paste (or ketchup)

• Dried or fresh herbs (optional)

Because of the order in which you build this dish, you can absolutely serve the ground meat, mashed potatoes, and vegetables separately for selective eaters. It’s essentially two dishes combined, which is exactly what makes it work for a family table. One pan, protein, carbs, and vegetables. Minimal clean-up.

You can also customize this dish to your family’s palates and the season. You can add sweet corn, try a sweet potato mash, add black pepper and paprika, or leave out X, Y, or Z.

And what really makes it is the flour and broth form a light roux, which thickens the filling and makes it rich enough to hold together under the mash. It’s such a simple trick that tastes next-level.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did.

Xo,

E

Creating recipes takes time, love, and resources, and many of the recipes I share appear in my cookbooks. To support this work, full recipe access is reserved for paid subscribers. Your subscription gives you access to all new recipes, my Recipe Archive, and the Monthly Meal Plan Index—and helps keep this work alive.

Subscribe now

Read more

For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

I should have started by telling you that Bobby and I convinced Kid A to agree to this trip by telling her that for her 10th birthday, we would visit Harry Potter Studios near London.

After all, she’s an HP scholar. After reading Book 1 in first grade, she decided she could only move on to each new book after she’d read the previous three times. I can intentionally flub a word on any page in any book, and she’ll correct me.

She is more studious than Hermione.

But even with the promise of Harry Potter Studios, she was not so quick to agree.

“Kids, I have something to tell you.” I could see them both praying another pet hadn’t died.

“We’re going on a trip to –”

Before I finished the sentence, Kid B was screaming, “YES! YES! YES! We’re going on an airplane! I can’t wait! YES!”

Kid A, holding her cat a little tighter, said, “Wait, where are we going?”

Bobby blurted out, “Harry Potter Studios!”

“Whaaaat?!” Meeeeooooowww. The cat flew off her lap. “Seriously? Harry Potter Studios?!”

I eased in, “Well, that’s the first stop.”

Not to be fooled, Kid A sat back down.

“Then, we’re going to Italy for six months.”

“What.” I could see her lower lip trembling.

While Kid B packed her suitcase (we wouldn’t be leaving for three months), Kid A put her foot down: she would not leave her friends, she would not leave her cat, and she would absolutely not celebrate her birthday in another country.

After some negotiation, we agreed to adjust the timeline to accommodate her birthday (which aligned better with the school calendar), print passport-sized pictures of the cat, and buy tickets to Harry Potter Studios.

Other than our flight and HP Studios, my Google Calendar was wiped clean of rainbow pinstripes marking everyone’s activities, appointments, meetings, and reminders for the week.

But going to Harry Potter Studios felt like the kind of endurance trek my body had started to negotiate with me about, and I wanted to make sure I was well rested.

So, when I hear Kid B shuffle out of bed at 4 a.m. the morning of our tour, I begin to spiral into the consequences of my ensuing exhaustion.

Mercifully, she tip-toes past my door and bolts upstairs, where she finds Peter (our host) in the kitchen.

When I plod upstairs at 6:15, bleary-eyed, I find Kid B immersed in a geography lesson with Peter, using Google Maps to identify precisely where we are on the globe.

Soon, we are dressed and out the door at startling speed, with snacks, water bottles, and a wand.

HP Studios is a marvel. I find myself saying yes to things I’d never dream of conceding to back home. A miniature, $10, gold-coated, white chocolate snitch. An embarrassing fee for the video file of the girls riding a broom in front of a green screen, transformed into a London and Hogwarts background.

As we walk from the Great Hall to the Gryffindor Common Room, and through the Forbidden Forest, gaping at original models of Buckbeak and Aragog, I forget the ache in my big toe joints. I even taste the butterbeer (and then gag), but marvel at how all the packaging is made from vegetable-based materials that can be recycled.

Although we’d told Pippa and Peter not to worry about us for dinner, when we traipse in from the rain after dark, Peter casually pulls a Cottage Pie out of the oven and sets the table. I wonder if they’ve attended a school of wizardry for hosting parents and small children.

Then the stewed plums arrive, with ice cream and shortbread. And then, just when we think it's time for bed, the fruit and cheese plate arrives.

I realize this is how P&P manage to keep us at the table for hours, night after night.

Even with protests of, “no, no, I’m too full,” everyone finds a little room to squeeze in a morsel of this and a nibble of that, and before long another bottle of wine has been finished and the cheese is gone and everyone is happy.

The next morning we plan to meet my cousin Peter, his wife, and their three boys at a local playground. The cross-continental cousins meet for the third time in their lives. Kid A is thrilled to discover that the oldest cousin is wearing proper spectacles in Gryffindor’s red and gold, with “Harry Potter” written on the frame. They stroll around the playground testing each other’s knowledge of the books.

Kid B and the middle cousin climb, run, jump, hang upside down, fall, scrape their knees, race, hide, and spin endlessly on one of those standing carousels that parents are tricked into pushing.

I huddle nearby with my cousin’s wife, trading notes about these energizer bunnies, and perhaps even more, about our ability to cope with their endless reserves.

Eventually, fingertips numb, we exchange massive embraces and promises not to let too much time pass, and say goodbye.

That evening, Pippa and Host-Peter have booked us a table at her favorite pub.

The girls have packed their purses with pencils and paper, and before they’ve placed their order, a cutthroat game of hangman is underway.

(In last week’s email, I shared our favorite table game, plus 11 more mealtime games for home or restaurants.)

While they disappear into their own world, the adults launch into the physical woes of aging, and how to defy them. If there is such a thing.

We pause briefly to order wine, the pot pie special, chicken liver pâté, and fish and chips.

I level with Pippa. “Ok, but really, what is your secret?” At 73, she’s a competitive golfer, tennis player, sailor, and avid traveler.

“Well,” she admits. “I try not to talk about my aches and pains. It’s a mindset, you see.” Peter nods.

I bite my lip. I have been talking ad nauseam about my headaches, my Hallux Rigidus, and -- see! I am doing it again!

As soon as I hit 40, I began to feel my age in a way I never had. Night sweats, neck pain, exhaustion. Never-ending exhaustion. And while many of these low-key ailments can actually be debilitating at times, they grow stronger when I give them my attention. When I let them define me.

Thoughts like, “you’re too old for that” creep in.

When I was recently on the phone with my mother, in tears over how my foot pain had forced me to quit the pick-up soccer league, she scoffed, “Emma, you are not too old. Maybe it’s just time to pivot.”

I’ve watched my mom do that countless times, refusing to let diagnoses in rheumatoid arthritis and breast cancer, twice, stop her.

“Just relax,” she said. “It will be ok.”

The waiter snaps me back to attention, placing a heaping plate of crispy, greasy fish and chips in front of me. I catch myself starting to map out the rest of the evening and our trip to Brighton tomorrow morning, hedging for obstacles that will compromise my sleep and spike my stress.

I hear a voice asking me, And why are you so stressed?

Silence.

I douse my fish and chips with malt vinegar, and have a long sip of wine.

For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

I hope you had a lovely holiday weekend!

I’ve bumped this week’s emails back a day to give myself time to recover from a very wet but thoroughly fantastic weekend of glamping, with a pack of beloved friends from college and their families.

So, a small spoiler alert (if you haven’t already seen me in the flesh): I am not currently in London. Or Italy.

We returned to Upstate NY this Spring.

With that being said, I’m relishing the opportunity to relive our world-schooling trip by writing about the various adventures and antics we experienced as a family (previous journal entries here).

So, shall we pick up from last week’s adventure in London, where the day ended around a lively table with a large pot of Bolognese Sauce and Pasta?

As Pippa and I were simmering our batch of Bolognese Sauce, Angus hovered in the background with a beer. “I wasn’t expecting Bolognese,” he said.

“Oh, why not?” I asked.

He thought about it. “Dunno. It’s not the usual dinner party entree.”

“Why not?” I insisted.

“It’s more of a weeknight meal, that’s all.” It was a Wednesday.

What I gathered was that Bolognese signaled a simple, family meal rather than a special occasion.

But tonight’s dinner needed a recipe that could be both family-friendly (particularly for Kid B) and special.

For me, Bolognese is just that: a robust, rich, one-pot sauce that is gently simmered for hours before ladling over fresh pasta, with Parmigiano Reggiano to garnish.

Done right, it’s very special and an easy crowd-pleaser. (And of course, Angus loved it.)

Precisely because of Bolognese Pasta’s double-duty traits, we would find ourselves enjoying this same dish in nearly every country, city, and village throughout our trip.

Appropriately, it would also be of the last meals of our three-month trip, at my cousin’s home in Bologna, and where I first learned to make a true Bolognese Sauce the Bolognese way (recipe below 👇).

Before I share the recipe, here's a little context from my Italian family.

In 2022, my cousin Stefano showed me the difference between a ragù Bolognese made with prosciutto and tomatoes (like the one he is making here with homemade tagliatelle) and ragù bianco, or white ragu, made with lemon zest.

And here, my cousin Andrea (Stefano’s little brother) serves his version of Bolognese, after which I’ve modeled the recipe below because it was so good.

In the video, I say, “a typical Bolognese lunch, made by Andrea, the best chef in Meloncello, Bologna.”

Andrea, not particularly known for his cooking, jokes that he is the best chef of his specific apartment unit.

I love how both my cousins grew up knowing how to make this typical dish, amongst many others, and can tell me in detail what defines the cuisine of their city and region, and what distinguishes it from others.

Like my other cousin, Angelo, who explained how his family would add a spoonful of Lambrusco wine to their bowls of broth with tortellini. (I tried it; it was delicious!)

This intimate knowledge of local food is quintessentially Italian, and what draws me back and back again to Italy.

What you’ll need for the Bolognese Sauce

Now, the key to a truly stellar tomato-based Bolognese Sauce (recipe below 👇) is adding pancetta, wine (don’t worry, you’ll cook off any alcohol), and a dash of nutmeg.

Nutmeg is an unexpected, classic addition to Bolognese cuisine, and often found in tortellini, if not added to the sauce or broth.

The basic ingredients you need are:

• Pancetta, diced

• Mirepoix: diced onion, celery, carrot

• Ground beef (or a 50-50 ratio of pork and beef, though beef only is classic)

• A glug of white or red wine (though Andrea prefers white and says it’s more typical of the region)

• Tomato puree (be sure it only contains tomatoes and salt; no additives!); Pomi is the only brand I use in the U.S.

• Broth or water (broth will make it richer)

• Salt, pepper, and a dash of nutmeg

• A splash of milk (optional finisher)

• Pasta (plus salt for cooking)

• Parmigiano Reggiano

The final touch is TIME.

Ever heard of Sunday sauce, where Italian nonnas and mothers set a large pot of pasta sauce to simmer for hours on a Sunday? That’s what you’ll want to allow for here: a couple hours to let the flavors meld together.

Can you skip this step? Of course. There are plenty of evenings where I’ve simply heated ground beef and a jar of marinara sauce together until the beef is cooked, and tossed it with the pasta.

But the results are not the same. The beef is tougher, and sometimes dry.

For this recipe, try not to rush it. As my Italian-American guitar teacher recently said, “Americans want everything to happen fast. But we must move at the pace of our process, and not at the pace of our impatience.”

In this case, the ingredients need time to soften and blend into a luxurious sauce.

So pick a day when you can be at home, checking on the sauce.

Once the sauce is done, and the pasta is cooked, you’ll want to save pasta water to build out the sauce. I’ll tell you exactly how to cook the pasta and mix it with the sauce for the perfect grand finale (recipe below 👇).

This is a recipe you want to have on hand year-round.

I often make extra sauce and freeze it in jars or ziplocks for easy weeknight meals, and serve it alongside a simple salad or steamed and roasted vegetables.

So, let’s get cooking…!

This recipe also appears in my second book, Seasonal Family Almanac. Creating recipes takes time, love, and resources, and many of the recipes I share appear in my cookbooks. To support this work, full recipe access is reserved for paid subscribers. Your subscription gives you access to all new recipes, my Recipe Archive, and the Monthly Meal Plan Index—and helps keep this work alive.

Subscribe now

Read more

For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

In London, the townhouses are tall and narrow, typically four floors. Though with the landings included, the girls count six. Twice, just to be sure.

Pippa and Peter have given us the basement suite, with three floors of separation from their bedroom. The girls are sharing a room and a bed, as they will for most of this trip. This inevitably leads to squabbling over sides and the precise location of the middle line, which I designate with a pillow (also useful for preventing sleep injuries).

At 4 a.m., someone tugs on my sleeve.

“Mamma, I can’t sleep.”

In the cobwebs of my mind, I envision myself saying, “That’s okay sweetie, come snuggle with me.” Instead I snarl, “stay in bed until 6.”

Since their early childhood years of sleep deprivation, I have become a troll, viciously protecting my sleep.

“But Mamma...”

I soften. “It’s okay love, you’re jet-lagged. Why don’t you read in bed until the sun comes up?”

If she says no, I’m resolved to wake Bobby as payback for the years I was the only parent who could get them back to sleep. With my boobs.

Mercifully, she mumbles “Okaaay,” and trails back to her room.

I lie awake in the dark of Pippa’s basement, listening to London wake up. It is quieter here than I expected. I think about how, at home, there is always something pulling at me before my feet hit the floor. Making school lunch, a morning meeting, the daunting to-do list I never conquer. Here, in this narrow townhouse on this quiet street, there is nothing. Just the dark, and the faint sound of the girls settling back into their shared bed upstairs.

I feel my nervous system downshift. I wonder, Can I operate at a slower speed?

At 6 a.m., Bobby and I are up. The girls, who have been huddled together since 4 a.m., stomachs rumbling, pounce on us the minute we stir.

Our family marches up the stairs to find that Pippa and Peter have laid out a lavish breakfast spread: Weetabix, muesli, unsweetened shredded wheat cereal alongside a bowl of sugar, yogurt, a variety of cheeses, fresh croissants, jam, butter, marmalade, freshly prepared fruit salad, orange juice, coffee, and tea.

A mug of milky Earl Grey is passed to me within seconds of sitting down.

And then our hosts do the unthinkable. They sit down too. Not just for the span of time it takes to scarf down breakfast. There is no scarfing, no rushing to clean up and dash out the door. They settle in for a proper, leisurely breakfast.

Pippa leans back in her chair, hands clasped behind her head.

I notice how she has simply refused to be hurried.

Pippa had a demanding career in finance. Peter ran his own architecture firm. Together they raised Peter’s son. At 73, they still consult, energized by their work.

And yet they seem to have remained immune to a particular kind of stress I fall prey to constantly, the compulsion to be productive at all times, to fill every gap.

At home, if I have nowhere to be after breakfast, hell, I’ll conjure somewhere! I’ll remember the laundry in the washer or become seized by a manic need to crush a 30-minute workout video. I’ll start preparing the next meal before the current one is finished.

Pippa’s hands are still clasped behind her head.

The girls devour cereal with a heaping spoonful of sugar and sneak off to play in their room. I begin to clear the table and Peter shoos me away.

“You go get ready.”

Pippa has booked us on an Uber boat up the Thames, a local commuter vessel that makes all the same stops as the tourist boats at a fraction of the price. We pile into her car and drive down to the pier. The sun has made a rare appearance and our spirits are high.

We file onto the boat and find seats by the window. Pippa commences the tour, pointing out every landmark.

“There’s the Houses of Parliament. And see Big Ben?”

I snap a photo of Kid A with the looming clocktower behind her. She takes a video for her friend back home.

Our first stop is at the Tower of London, next to Tower Bridge, commonly mistaken for the famed London Bridge. We’ve planned this stop to combine a visit to Borough Market with meeting my stepbrother Max for lunch. A native Londoner, Max has promised to take us to his favorite local pub.

We round the corner to find Max loping toward us, grin spread ear to ear. The kids take off and dash into his arms. On his last visit to the US, they confided in me that Max is “actually just a kid in a grownup’s body.” He throws one of them on his shoulders and ruffles the other’s hair.

We follow Max to The Mudlark. In the two minutes I’ve excused myself to use the bathroom, I return to find the girls with pint glasses of Coca Cola, and a session beer waiting for me. Their eyes are wide and conspiring. “They said we could get whatever we wanted, but that we had to order quickly before you got back!”

They collapse into laughter.

I pray.

Lunch is spectacular. My childhood memories of pubs involve greasy fish and chips and shandies, a mixture of light beer and lemonade, legally served to children. Today we have steak pot pie, puff-pastry wrapped sausage rolls, and a salad brimming with whole grains and vegetables. For the girls, cheeseburger and fries.

We stumble out into the covered market and begin tucking into samples at every stall: hard cheddar from the highlands, Turkish delight, and rounds of espresso from a coffee cart.

Kid B, apparently deciding the Coca Cola wasn’t a sufficient energy boost, musters the courage to ask for a decaf bean to nibble on. The vendor raises an eyebrow in my direction. I shrug. She retrieves the bean.

We say farewell to Max and board the boat again. The final stop is a massive, old factory that has been converted into apartment buildings. Bobby, a fanatic about creative real estate projects, peels off with Pippa to look inside while I let the girls explore a nearby fountain. The water runs over the edge into a drain, and for nearly twenty minutes, I watch them put their boots in and out, in and out.

Finally I ask, “What on earth are you doing?”

“It’s a shoe-cleaning machine!” They are positively delighted with this discovery, intent on shining every inch of the heavy winter boots they have traipsed around in all day.

Like Pippa, the girls are inhabiting time, instead of racing against it. I know this is the space they always live in, with me badgering them to manage it better. This how they find small delights everywhere.

I take note.

Kid B’s eyes begin to gloss over just as Bobby and Pippa return. Peter meets us at the pier with the car. We climb in and drive up to the road, only to find the gate is closed.

I brace for a meltdown, from anyone.

But Kid B perks up. She hops out and begins fiddling with the gate, pushing buttons on the keypad, inspecting the hinges. I call the number on the sign and speak with an attendant. Just as Kid B pushes the keypad one more time, the gate swings open.

She takes a small bow.

Back at the house, bribed with the promise of cartoons, the girls agree to write an entry in their journals about the best thing they saw today. (For now, we’ve agreed that this will be the writing portion of their homeschooling.)

Meanwhile, Pippa and I make a big pot of Bolognese while she tells me about the house, how Peter bought it in the 1980s when this part of the city was still considered decrepit. The roof was partially missing. The walls were on the cusp of collapsing. As a young architect, he took on the project with enthusiasm. Today it is solid and well-loved, a home they adore filling with friends and family.

Pippa’s son Angus joins us for dinner. The girls are thrilled to meet another man-child.

After we tuck into the Bolognese, garlic bread, salad, and poached pears for dessert, Pippa brings out a cheese board with fruit and crackers.

Angus raises an eyebrow and looks at his watch. “A cheese board on a Wednesday evening?”

Pippa shrugs. “And why not?” She won’t let the weekly schedule dictate her idea of a good dinner party.

The girls wrinkle their noses at the stinky cheese, and seize the opportunity to ask Angus to grade their journal entries.

Kid A has drawn a picture of the Houses of Parliament. He scribbles A+++ and adds a note: “Never have the Houses of Parliament looked so beautiful!”

Kid B has drawn the shoe-cleaning machine.

I won’t take long to recognize this pattern on our travels, and to let it recalibrate my own sense of what is worth noticing.

The Tower of London or the shoe-cleaning fountain?

The one-footed pigeon in Paris’ Place des Vosges or the Louvre?

For the kids, it will always be the one-footed pigeon.

Thank you so much for following along on our adventures!

For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

Hello from my 4 am brain!

Maybe it’s peri-menopause.

Or maybe I just couldn’t wait to send you this life-saver of a recipe introduced to me by my godmother, Pippa, during our stay with her in London.

Ok, it was definitely hormones, but…

This recipe for Balsamic-Glazed Roast Chicken and Vegetables needs to live in your regular rotation.

One of the hardest parts about traveling with kids is ensuring they’re well fed. They need fuel to balance the constant stimulation and distance covered on foot. But for lots of kids, especially ones with selective palates (a.k.a. “picky eaters”) or sensory sensitivity, eating on the road can be even more challenging than at home. Everything is new, and thus, potentially suspicious! (Although Kid A is now veering towards, “potentially exciting and delicious!”)

Which is why, when Pippa’s roast chicken was met with my kids’ utmost enthusiasm, I committed her recipe to memory.

Kid B declared it, “the best chicken I’ve ever had!”

It’s an incredibly easy and forgiving recipe that can be assembled with whatever vegetables you have on-hand. My version of the recipe below calls for potatoes, but you can substitute them for carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, celeriac, beets, and even broccoli or other hardy vegetables that will stand up to a hot oven.

The star ingredient is the balsamic vinegar, which makes the dish slightly sweet and rich.

If you missed last week’s travel log (which included this dinner), you can catch up here.

I hope this becomes your family's “best chicken ever” too!

Xo,

Emma

Creating recipes takes time, love, and resources, and many of the recipes I share appear in my cookbooks. To support this work, full recipe access is reserved for paid subscribers. Your subscription gives you access to all new recipes, my Recipe Archive, and the Monthly Meal Plan Index—and helps keep this work alive.

Subscribe now

Read more

Today’s entry is more meaty - I hope you enjoy it! For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

As a first-generation American kid, travel was nonnegotiable. All my relatives were overseas, and my mother intended for us to know them well. We spent most winter and summer holidays visiting family, and those trips gave me fluency in four languages: English, Italian, Adventure, and Food (my lens through which I understood my family’s worlds).

As I got older, I worked hard to keep traveling, sometimes juggling shifts at multiple jobs. I backpacked and volunteered for months at a time around the world. I lived and worked in Ecuador and Nicaragua for half of my 20’s, and added Spanish to my toolbox.

Travel wasn’t handed to me, and still, every time I mentioned an upcoming trip, someone would say, “You’re so lucky!”, and I would feel a small, familiar pang of guilt.

A week before leaving Ithaca, I ventured into a 10°F night to celebrate my friend Liliana’s birthday over margaritas. When another guest, Corey, asked about the purpose of our trip, I found myself sheepishly saying, “It’s mostly for fun.”

Liliana overheard and laughed. “Say it’s an ancestral journey, babe. Going for ‘fun’ sounds too bougie.”

Just that week, another friend had mentioned that where she grew up, this sort of thing would have been unheard of. “No one had enough money to do that.”

I launched into my explanation. Bobby and I had recently sold Firelight Camps, the glamping hotel we’d spent twelve years building and operating, and burning out on. For the first time we weren’t obligated to stay in one place. This felt like the perfect window for a family sabbatical. I conceded, “I know it’s a big privilege.”

“Even if you are privileged,” Corey said, leaning in, “look at what you’re choosing to do with it. You could be spending your money on cars or other junk you don't need. Instead you’re taking your daughters across the world to meet the people in it.”

I smiled and filed away her comment, her affirmation landing somewhere I didn’t quite know how to access yet.

The night before we left from my mother’s house in Connecticut, she walked into my room and handed me a small package. “This came for you.”

I was shocked to find mail from my spiritual mentor, Mirah Love. For the past year, Mirah had helped me climb out of suffocating anxiety and emotional distress through meditation and mindfulness practices.

Inside were two squares of cloth and a letter. One swatch was an iridescent blue silk, beautifully embroidered with flowers. The other was plain cotton the color of Merlot.

Mirah’s letter explained that her teacher, Lama Marut, had entrusted his robes to her after his death. Bewildered by this inheritance, Mirah stored them in her closet for several years. Then she received a clear message: dismantle the robes and send a piece to everyone in her community. This was a symbol of what Mirah realized was at the heart of Marut’s decades of teaching: loving connection. Not meditation tools and practices. Not perfect posture and mantras. Loving connection was the most important thing we could learn and practice.

I folded the cloth and letter and tucked them away for safekeeping in my backpack.

The next day on the flight, I found myself scrolling through volunteer organizations in Europe, determined to find service work that would give our trip meaning I could explain to others.

Then Mirah’s words came back to me.

“Loving connection.”

The trip itself was already the most important thing we could do. Not despite the privilege, but through it. Across five countries, we would all be connecting across differences, bridging worlds, and dissolving the fears that often come with unfamiliarity. Our country and our world are splitting along the seams of those fears. And here we were, with an extraordinary opportunity to spend three months repairing some of those tears.

We would be ambassadors of loving connection. All four of us.

That was more than enough.

And it turns out, that practice would start with each other.

Over the past few years, our family relationships had been strained by the relentless grind of school, extracurriculars, and work, and by our youngest’s explosive behavior, which we were only just beginning to understand through the lens of ADHD. What I looked forward to most on this trip wasn’t pizza in Italy. It was slowing down, reclaiming our rhythms, and finding our way back to each other.

In the hotel, on our first morning in London, Bobby slipped down to the café to buy pastries for our small, hungry monster. Despite Kid B’s protests the night before, she wasn’t hungry. Her big sister, ever the reliable eater, tucked in.

We packed up and left. As Kid A trailed down the corridor, we asked one last time, “Did you get everything?”

“Yup!” she piped up cheerfully from the back of our little parade.

Aware that Kid B’s tank was empty, we set out, nerves quietly on edge, to find the bus to the train station. We hadn’t gone ten steps when Kid B slipped on the icy sidewalk and went down, face-first. Bobby, Kid A, and I froze, bracing for her reaction. She looked up and giggled. We all burst out laughing. Hallelujah!

At the bus stop, huddled against the cold, we did what my mother always did on long car rides and in waiting rooms: we sang.

My mother come up with songs for bedtime, road trips, and our favorite, waiting.

Why Are We Waiting is sung to the tune of Come All Ye Faithful, and goes like this: Why are we waiting, why are we waiting, we are waiting because: ___________________!

The last line is where everyone takes turns filling in the blank. The reasons start practical, like “the bus is late,” or “it’s very cold,” and slowly spiral into far-fetched ideas until everyone is laughing too hard to sing. Huddling for warmth, we chanted like lunatics on the side of the highway, and I thought: this is exactly what I came for.

We barely reached three rounds when a double decker bus pulled up. I watched both the kids’ jaws drop.

“It’s almost like the night bus in Harry Potter!” squealed Kid A, who minutes before had observed, with great disappointment, that London was not very Harry Potter at all.

“We’re in the muggle district,” I reminded her.

The girls raced up the stairs, leaving their bags unattended on the sidewalk. Bobby and I exchanged a look, hauled all four bags onto the bus, and followed them up.

We took the bus to the tube, and the tube to the Earls Court Road station, where my godmother Pippa was waiting.

Pippa was my mother’s best friend at university in England, where they both grew up. But that description doesn’t come close to capturing the marvel she is. What I tell my kids is this: Pippa sailed across the Atlantic Ocean. Twice. As captain. She did it when women simply didn’t. That tells you most of what you need to know about Pippa. And she hovers at about six feet tall.

She and her husband Peter had generously invited us to stay at their London townhouse for the week. I was delighted and slightly apprehensive in equal measure about managing our family’s chaos in their home.

Pippa gave me a warm embrace and attempted to greet the girls, who were crammed behind me, jostling for a hiding spot. I coaxed them out by pointing to the escalator, and suddenly they were fearless, tearing through the station toward the gliding stairs, forgetting their bags, again. Pippa, Bobby, and I exchanged an amused glance and carried everything out to her car.

I quietly wondered whether everything, including ourselves, would fit into a European-sized car.

The girls slid obliviously into the backseat while the grown-ups played Tetris with the bags. Bobby was last in, folding himself into the passenger seat like Alice after drinking the wrong potion, head tilted against the roof, knees tucked to his chest. We took one look at him and lost it completely.

Arriving at Pippa and Peter’s was the exhale we needed. Pippa served us elevenses, mid-morning tea and shortbread, and sent the girls off to find their bedroom and, she told them with a smile, “the secret stairwell to the roof.” This would be the first of many times friends and family took us in with open arms.

That afternoon we visited the Victoria and Albert Museum, affectionately known as the V&A, which is free and vast. We were moving through a room of marble sculptures when I stopped short in front of stone figure.

It was a peasant woman, nursing her baby. Her gown had slipped from her shoulder, her breast exposed without apology. I was reminded of the time someone had scolded me for nursing my firstborn in a restaurant. The sculptor, Aimé-Jules Dalou, had rendered his subject in terracotta, warm and earthen, with the same reverence usually reserved for gods and mythological heroes. I stood there longer than I meant to. We were so accustomed to marble monuments of chiseled warriors and celestial creatures. Here was a mother, caught in an act the world had once told me to hide, rendered as if it were the most natural form of heroism.

“Mamma, come oooon.” Kid B dragged me away to catch up with the others.

Just before the children faded, we found the famous blue whale skeleton, hung in the cathedral of Hintze Hall, and flanked by taxidermy birds and other creatures.

That night, Pippa roasted chicken with vegetables and a balsamic glaze, which she had planned ahead of time after asking about the girls’ preferences. I wasn’t sure Kid B would eat it, but was thrilled when she devoured two helpings and declared it “the best chicken I’ve ever had!”

Next week, for paid subscribers: Pippa’s Balsamic-Glazed Roast Chicken and Vegetables, the first meal that made us feel truly at home.

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Before bed, Kid A couldn’t find her toiletry case. We searched every bag and to our horror realized it was still hanging behind the bathroom door at the airport hotel.

Her newly replaced retainer was in it, another couple hundred dollars down the drain. We would call the hotel in the morning.

I added it to the running tally:

• My pajama shirt: left at Nonna’s

• Kid B’s gloves: left at Nonna’s

• One water bottle: left on the airplane

• Kid A’s toiletry kit with retainer, electric toothbrush, and more: left at the hotel

Day two. We were just getting started.

For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

When I was 11, my mother took my three siblings and me to drop off my father at the airport for a business trip. She parked in the garage and said, “Why don’t we go in and send him off?” Slightly confused, we piled out of the car and into departures.

But once Papa was checked in, my mother said, “Oh, why don’t we just take him all the way to the gate?” We loved airports, and were amused by this rare chance to experience one without actually traveling.

But my mother seemed even more enthralled by the game. When we reached the gate and the desk attendant called for boarding, Mamma whispered conspiratorially, “Let’s take him on the plane to say goodbye!” We marched on dutifully, rebelliously, until we arrived at his row and discovered five empty seats next to him.

“Wait, what do you mean these are our seats?!”

“Surprise!” She glowed. “We’re going to Disney World!”

“Whaaaaaaat!?!?”

Even when the plane took off, we were still in disbelief.

We grilled my mother the entire plane ride, providing thorough amusement for the passengers around us.

How did you pack for all of us? (Yes, Mamma, how did you?!)

Did you bring enough clothes? Will it be warm? Did you bring my favorite dress? Does my teacher know I won’t be in school? Did she give me homework? Do any of our friends know? Where are we staying?

How did you get our bags into the airport? She had rolled them in, right before our eyes.

The surprise, it turned out, was the most memorable part of the trip, save for one other moment: the Back to the Future ride.

The ride was a journey through an imagined future for humans on our planet. There were gizmos and gadgets to make housework easier, and hoverboards that floated. But what astounded me most was a montage of two people talking to each other across the world, on a screen. Despite being separated by miles, they could clearly hear each other’s voices and see each other’s faces.

I turned to my mother. “Do you really think we’ll be able to do that one day?”

I couldn’t even begin to dream what that would be like. I’d never even seen a computer.

What’s more, our entire trip had been planned and managed without the aid of a computer or smartphone.

For children today, living without either is virtually unfathomable. Let’s be honest, for adults too.

And while elder millennials like myself might remember life without computers and smartphones, it’s very difficult to live in the modern world without one.

Trust me, I’ve tried.

There are things I love about my smartphone. Talking to friends and family overseas. Recording new guitar songs in voice memos. The way Google Maps saves me from driving 60 miles in the wrong direction after a concert in central Maryland and having to call my mom for help, again, at 1 a.m.

But mostly, I loathe my smartphone.

A smartphone is like Gollum’s ring. It murmurs to me to pick it up. It listens to me. It contorts my brain, my time, my sense of reality. It has largely replaced my planner, my notebook, my cookbooks, my stereo, my CDs, my DSLR camera. I’m not ungrateful for the reduction of stuff it offers, but it comes with a cost.

It robs my confidence, my quiet mind, the pleasure of hard-won research, and my problem-solving skills. It infringes on my sleep, my coffee time, my car rides, and the books I once devoured in the bathroom (eh hem).

It steals my family time.

It is a leech, sucking my attention.

When I saw FaceTime foreshadowed on that Back to the Future Ride, all I could think about was connection. I would be able to talk to my relatives strewn across five continents. I would be able to talk to my friends back home when we summered with my relatives in Italy.

I did not imagine that, with FaceTime, my children would be able to turn their faces into cartoon octopuses, add a Barbie filter while typing words they could be speaking to the person in front of them, and make a heart symbol with their hands until tiny red hearts explode on the screen.

Even without scientific evidence, there is an icky quality about smartphone use akin to addiction. Sneaking a message here, a scroll there. Overriding screen time limits.

So before our trip abroad, I intended to put a stop to it. At least for me. I wanted to give myself and my family the gift of my presence.

Two days before leaving, I walked into a Verizon store and asked the representative to help me replace my smartphone with a flip phone.

“Sorry, what? You, like, want to be disconnected?” he said, half-smirking.

No, bro, I like want to be connected.

Ignoring him, I scanned the phones on display. “Do you even have flip phones here?”

Suddenly aware that I was serious, he said, “No ma’am, I’m sorry. I guess you could have your kids set a screen time limit for you and let them set the password?”

What, you mean give them more access to my phone than me? No way!

I tried a different Verizon store that afternoon. Once again, I was thwarted. This time, the representative suggested I buy one online and come back in to have them transfer the line.

When I recounted my efforts to my mother, she scoffed. “You can’t travel without a smartphone now.”

Secretly, I knew this. On my last trip to Italy, I couldn’t even pay for parking without a parking app, and Apple Pay was the standard method of payment, from street vendors to coliseum tickets.

So one day before our departure, I devised a new plan. I would strip my phone down to the basics. I’d been primed on this a couple of years earlier, after reading Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, but it had been some time since I’d audited my phone.

I was shocked at how many apps had crept back onto it, justified by work or some other inane excuse.

It was time to clean up and claim back my time and attention.

Paid subscribers can download my checklist that lists out exactly what I did to make my smartphone a functional tool that worked for me, on my terms.

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If you know someone who would value this resource, please share it with them! Even better, consider implementing this checklist with a group of friends or parents.

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For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

Pushing luggage plus two children to the airport curb.

Entry 02: Lighten Up

We landed to find the hotel shuttle wouldn’t arrive for an hour. The girls visibly deflated. Bobby and I quickly conjured an Uber, one of many moments on this trip I was grateful to have lost the argument with my family about bringing a flip phone.

In an idealistic effort to be more present with my family, I had nearly talked myself into leaving my smartphone at home. Instead, I’d settled on dumbing down my phone by deleting nearly every app. Over the course of the trip, I would discover that it was nearly impossible to travel without a smartphone these days, and I would steadily need to add many apps back: email to access tickets for museums and trains, public transportation and parking apps, apps that stood in for museum guides, Airbnb to communicate with our hosts. And of course, Uber.

We pulled up to the hotel at 10:30 p.m. There was a luggage cart outside and an immediate scuffle between the girls about who got to ride on it. We wrestled it from them and loaded the bags. Check-in was seamless.

As we settled into the room, it was the grown-ups’ turn to deflate.

The carpets were ancient and greasy, and I immediately regretted not packing slippers. The bathroom floor was splattered with dried water droplets (and pee?), a telltale sign it hadn’t seen a mop. There was a stray hair on the toilet. The linens were scratchy and worn. Bobby and I had operated hotels for fifteen years, and though our standards were high, this room wouldn't even pass modest ones.

We stood in the middle of the room, tallying our grievances, when Kid A got our attention.

“Why are you so upset about the room? It’s GREAT! I mean, look at this wallpaper!” She caressed the textured wall covering, surely a vestige of the ‘60s.

“Yeah!” chimed in Kid B. “And these beds are perfect jumping distance!” She sailed from one bed to the other and back.

I was about to deliver a lecture about feet that had been shoeless on an airplane floor and the sanctity of my bedsheets, when a small voice in my head said: Hey, lighten up! I would not die from lingering germs or a mediocre night of sleep, right?

While the girls played, I turned my attention to dinner, and deflated again.

In the rush to settle in, we had missed our last chance to get food. It was now 11:30 p.m. and there was nowhere to eat at this hour.

I could practically hear my mother chiding me. And then I remembered the time that she and her cousin took a wrong turn hiking with their six kids, between the ages of 2 and 11. We missed both lunch and dinner, and survived torrential downpours on harrowing cliff-side trails.

Whether I liked it or not, this was a great opportunity for the girls to learn about adaptability and resilience.

After all, we had:

• 1 granola bar

• 1 tangerine

• 1 bag of trail mix, almost finished

• 1 mealy apple

• Creamers from the tea station

No one would die. We ate plenty of food that day, and there would be breakfast tomorrow.

I waited until one of them said the dreaded words I’d been waiting for, “I’m hungry!”

I kneeled to meet them at eye level, and with my brightest smile announced, “Guess what, girls? We get to have snacks for dinner!”

They stared back blankly from the beds.

I repeated slowly, “Snacks. For. Dinner.”

The meltdown I had been bracing for all day finally arrived.

Kid B began to howl, “I-WANT-DIN-NER! I WANT REAL DIN-NER!” At home, she would have been delighted to forego dinner for snacks.

“I am not going to bed until I get real dinner! And I’m not eating snacks!”

In the confines of our small hotel room, our tempers began to fray. Kid B was relentless. There was nothing we could do except stay calm, barely. (Ok, maybe not at all.)

Kid A tucked into the coffee creamers, while Bobby and I polished off the trail mix. Kid B remained on strike.

At 1 a.m., Bobby, Kid A, and I crawled under the covers. Kid B’s campaign slowly faded. She crawled next to me, and as I read to her, she nodded off.

Somewhere around 2 a.m., I finally drifted off, prying my mind from the grimy sheets to the morning ahead. I hoped Kid B's breakfast would amount to more than a bite of hot dog and two pieces of bubblegum. We had a train to catch, and my godmother waiting at the other end: a woman who had sailed across the Atlantic. Twice. As captain.

I’d love your help choosing next week’s companion piece for paid subscribers (free subscribers can access the preview)👇

For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

I was 19 the first time I set off for a six-month adventure abroad with my identical twin, . We had convinced our respective universities to let us defer for a semester while we volunteered with Cross-Cultural Solutions in Costa Rica and Peru, arranging independent research projects that would count toward college credit. My mother, who had begged us to take a gap year before college like most European teenagers do, was ecstatic.

Contrary to her advice, I had left packing to the last minute. At three in the morning, hours before we were scheduled to drive to JFK airport, I sat on my childhood bed fretting over dress options, packing and unpacking the 60-liter backpack I’d worn on backcountry trips as an outdoor guide at college.

Now, at 41, standing in the middle of my bedroom, I felt like that same girl, on the cusp of a big adventure, agonizing over which shoes to bring. But this time I was also packing for two small children. My husband was on his own. (Lord help the men of previous generations who couldn't pack a bag without a woman behind them, eh hem, like my dad.)

Thankfully, I hadn’t waited until the night before. I had given myself several weeks to write and rewrite my packing list, a skill my mother taught me as a child, and to slowly collect everything we needed.

In the weeks leading up to departure, I noticed a pattern: before most trips, I convince myself that I have to buy an essential item, or two, or three. Though I’ve tried to be restrained, there are several new things laid out on my bed. And yet, once we’re miles from home, I’ll remember that the thing I was hell-bent on buying wasn’t necessary at all. No one is looking at me when I travel. While I like to feel confident and comfortable in my clothes, I am not the object of other people’s attention and don’t need to be perfectly styled. Besides, I can find nearly anything I need at my destination, and I have proof of that in the two new pairs of shoes I will buy on this trip.

But I am a minimalist, resolved to pack as little as possible, in part because I expect the girls to carry their own luggage. Again, the travel gods laugh at me.

And as I’ll discover, the hard part is not packing minimally, but avoiding accumulating too many new things along the way.

Because Kids. Always. Want. To. Buy. Things.

But when it comes to packing, by this age I’ve been on countless short and long trips around the world, some of which turned into years, and my packing shows it. This trip required some logistical finesse to prepare for three seasons and a ski trip, but I must say, I’m quite proud of my packing job (even if we did end up carrying the kids’ bags some of the way).

For paid subscribers: below you can download my complete packing list, organized by what I packed for myself, for our family, and for my children. I’ve included notes on why I chose certain items and what is non-negotiable. Use it as a baseline for building your own packing list, for short or long trips, across any season… and check them off as you go!

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I hope this helps you on your next adventure. See you next week, when the girls teach me a surprising lesson about perspective in an airport hotel.

XO,

E

Packing List - Download Here👇

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Today I’m launching a new series, Field Notes from an Adventure Chef. From January to March, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I’ll be sharing entries from my journal on how it actually went.

Entry 01: One-Way

Waking the kids up early for school is nearly impossible, but if we are traveling, they love waking up early. The earlier the better. So today, when the alarm goes off at 5 a.m., they are up. Kid B (my daughters go by Kid A and Kid B here; birth order only, not preference) has her coat on by the door before Bobby has even made his coffee.

Today, we have a one-way flight to London. We have pulled the children out of school and are beginning a world-schooling trip abroad. I’m dead-set on being gone for six months. Bobby says that between kids, elderly parents at home, and unpredictable events, we’ll last three. Secretly, I settle somewhere in between.

Even as we begin loading the car, I am still questioning my shoe choice. I hear every member of my family groan as I switch between two different pairs. Selecting shoes for a multi-month trip is not easy. I have a foot condition called Hallux Rigidus, which makes it especially challenging to find something both comfortable and cute. I settle for a clunky pair of black ankle boots, insulated for rain and snow, that I bought the day before.

I manage to cast aside a few things from the girls’ luggage that seem unnecessary, including one of Kid B’s three stuffed animals. She catches me and stuffs it back in. I concede: “Fine. As long as you can carry your suitcase, you can bring it.” The travel gods laugh at me.

Nonna is driving us to the airport, just an hour from her house in Connecticut at this time of day. “Girls, we’ll get to see the sunrise on the way!” she says. Yet another perk of flying to Europe by day instead of a redeye. I’m thrilled I won’t have to arrive on the other end and navigate departures, transportation, and speaking to people with bleary eyes and aching limbs. The kids are thrilled they can have a movie marathon without being forced to sleep. We tell them there’s a screen limit, but we know the reality of enforcing it will be meager; there’s a screen directly in front of their faces over which we have zero control. We plan to at least turn them off for meals.

The sunrise is a worthy send-off. It illuminates Manhattan’s skyline with streaks of yellow and orange, casting warmth on the snow and frozen marshlands.

We arrive at the airport and I insist on a family photo at the curb. Why must the girls always protest these? It ends up being one of the few family photos we take throughout the entire trip, and to my delight, shows our minimal packing for what we intend to be a three-season adventure.

We give Nonna big hugs. “Stay healthy,” I say. “Let me know how Bapu is.” Bapu is the grandchildren’s nickname for my stepdad. Both my mother and stepdad have cancer. My mother fought and beat breast cancer fifteen years ago, but five years ago it returned as metastatic cancer. Historically, this would have meant there was little time left. Today, because of incredible progress in breast cancer research and medicine, her metastatic breast cancer is managed more like a chronic illness. It helps that she is an A+ patient and the most positive thinker I know. She largely attributes her health to her mindset. My stepdad has a rare lymphoma called Waldenström’s. In contrast to my mom, he boycotts doctors’ appointments and prescriptions, and lives on a steady diet of bread, cheese, and Branston pickle, washed down with gin and tonics. He is in denial.

“I will!” my mom says. “Now don’t forget, when you go in, American Airlines check-in is all the way to the right. Once you go through departures…”

With her British accent, she sounds like the Siri you’d actually want giving you directions. But I have stopped listening, even though I am in awe of her rare talent to memorize her way through any airport she has flown out of more than once.

“Yup, I’ll follow the signs, Mamma.”

For the girls’ first homeschool lesson, I have already decided, they will read the signs and lead us to our gate. As I predicted, it is Kid B who leads the charge, with Kid A listlessly trailing behind, and Bobby and I exchanging smug glances: see, they are already learning.

We’ve barely made it through security when Mamma calls.

“How’s everyone doing?”

“Good. We’re about to have breakfast.”

“Oh good,” she clucks. “Yes, make sure everyone has a good breakfast before getting on that plane. The meals won’t be very good. And don’t forget to have a pee before you board!”

As if on cue, Kid A says she has to pee.

I fret over her ability to make a toilet-paper nest on the seat. “Ma-maaaa,” she says, pushing me out of the stall. “I know how to do it!” She’s ten.

In that moment, I understand exactly why my own mother has called her 41-year-old daughter to remind her to eat breakfast and pee, despite the fact that I’ve been on countless flights without her supervision.

Once you’re a mother, it’s very difficult to stop mothering. For one, you’ve had far more experience at life than your children. And second, you simply can’t stop caring.

After Kid A is finished, I hover while she washes her hands. She rolls her eyes and reminds me that she knows how to do it.

It is 7 a.m. We go find breakfast.

Kid A spots Shake Shack, not a place I’d typically take the girls for breakfast, but we’re traveling, and everyday rules go out the window. She orders a cheeseburger and crinkle fries. Kid B orders a hot dog. “Mamma, you’ve gone crazy!” they chorus.

“You’re like a Trip Girl now!” Says Kid B, awarding me some new status I have yet to understand.

Kid A eats her entire meal. Kid B eats one bite of her hot dog, declares it too salty, and stuffs two pieces of bubble gum in her mouth. That is her breakfast. I shudder at what this will do to her mood in the next hour. Bobby and I order $15 omelets from another counter that are no bigger than a silver dollar.

Breakfast pretty much sums up American airports: price-gouging fast food.

On the plane, Kid B eats nearly her entire airplane meal while watching a movie — perhaps because she is watching a movie, though we had originally planned to eat with screens off. But the truth is, Bobby and I have little will to enforce screen rules as we set off on this trip. Not only do we want to start on a high note, we are savoring the fact that for eight hours, we can do whatever we damn well please. Bobby cleans his computer desktop, organizes taxes, and watches a movie. I write, sketch, and watch A Star is Born for the second time on an airplane, questioning why I keep choosing a movie that will reduce me to gasping sobs while crammed between strangers.

We land. Our bodies still feel like spring chickens in the afternoon, and we practically float to the curb at Heathrow, not quite sure what comes next, but giddy to find out.

If you’re enjoying Field Notes from an Adventure Chef, I’ll be sharing a paid companion piece next week, starting with exactly what made it into our bags for a three-month, three-season trip (and the items I gave up at the last minute). You can upgrade your subscription here:

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