I’m headed to St. Louis tomorrow, and am not wholeheartedly looking forward to another flaccid lunchtime chicken wrap choked down during a dash through O’Hare. I thought I’d build some appreciation for bland sustenance by spending some time with old favorites:
Dieta de Tripa: the conspicuously rotten tripe stew Sarah and I ate in Huaraz, Peru. It caused a near-death stomach war that lasted for five months, gave me some fantastic cheekbone hollows, and gave Sarah time to get nursed back to health by a charming Brit: her now-husband Jimmy (who had the sense to stay well the hell away from the tripa.)
9-Day-Old Coffee at the elk hunting camp: getting up at 3 am to put water on to boil, cooking breakfast, packing lunches for the hunters and guides, cleaning up, then chopping wood until it was time to make dinner gave me an appreciation for caffeine in any form. I had strict instructions to keep my feminist agenda to myself, to reject the advances of the hunters, and to never, ever clean the old grounds out of the coffee pot before adding more. It was the best autumn and the worst coffee of my life.
Yoghurt Soda: you know, the Turkish kind. The one that’s made with goat milk and salt? The one that tastes like sparkling buttermilk at first and then tastes like distilled goat musk, but in a powdery way that fills every crevice of your mouth and throat? Oh, you don’t know that one? You should definitely try it.

What with not being able to bring rotten organ meat, black tar, or exploding bottles onto the plane these days, I guess I’ll be having a wrap!