ADVENTURES IN GETTING TO YES: COOKING IN A HOTEL ROOM

I’ve detailed many of the zany stories of my travels in the past, and this most recent trip of mine was no exception.  Unlike my “Hotel Room Training Insanity” post, this was not about me overcoming terrible hotel fitness center hours, forcing me into inmate like training conditions (it was actually open 24 hours, equipped with a Peleton and a power tower, which allowed me to get in some awesome Tactical Barbell conditioning workouts), but instead a story of me overcoming broken promises and finding a way to “get mine” and, ultimately, “get to yes”.  For you see, dear reader, I THOUGHT I was being proactive by booking a room with a kitchen.  Those that have followed my previous bouts of insanity as it relates to travel have witnessed me trying to make due in austere living conditions by use of microwave egg cookers and canned meats, but as I was fully locked into the Vince Gironda “Maximum Definition Diet” (aka: The "Steak and Eggs" diet), I felt it imperative to have a means to actually cook meat and eggs on the regular.  And I’ve had enough microwaved eggs in my life that I wasn’t about to slum to that level again.  Well, you can imagine my delight when I pulled into the hotel parking lot, got my room assignment, opened the door, and was greeted by my kitchen I painstakingly took time to secure.  Yes, “fully equipped” was this kitchen, with a full sized refrigerator, sink with a garbage disposal, full set of cutlery and dishes, a dishwasher…and a microwave. 

Despite being steak and eggs, let me assure you these are NOT on the diet.

 

Yes, dear reader: a microwave.  THAT was what was deemed a “kitchen” by this hotel.  That is the sad state of cooking in America these days: the microwave.

 

Folks, in the first 8 weeks of my marriage, my wife and I were confined to a hotel room while we awaited the ability to move into our permanent residence.  I lived off Lean Cuisines for dinner during those 8 weeks.  I had traveled on many occasions and used a plastic microwave egg cooker to make breakfasts in the morning.  I’ve paid my dues: I was NOT going to be subjected to the tyranny of microwaved cuisine once more!  NOT when I had been promised “a kitchen”.

 

So I went and got mine. 

 

I got it, in the form of a $20 electric ceramic griddle at Walmart.

 

I'm hoping this is the most meat this hotel bed has ever seen...

 

Alongside 3.5 dozen eggs (most of them pastured), a little over 1.5lbs of grassfed lamb shoulder chops, a little over 3lbs of beef flanken ribs, and a 1.3lb T-bone steak. 

 

I had already packed a jar of beef tallow, because that’s how I roll.

 

And folks, that night for dinner, and for the next 3 days afterwards, I turned that hotel room into a LEGIT kitchen.  It was practically a short order foodtruck/grill.  I made such wonderful meals, to include the first meal breaking that griddle out on it’s maiden voyage: steak and eggs.  Specifically that T-bone I mentioned, which I purchased SPECIFICALLY to celebrate my victory in getting to yes. 

 

Some are rewarded with candy, others with anabolism

My travel was for work, rather than pleasure, which meant I had a tight schedule in the morning and could NOT partake in the free breakfast provided by the hotel, but that was of no consequence now!  I would wake up at 0400, get in my morning conditioning workout, return to my room and make more delicious meals of meat and eggs, cooked in beef tallow, on a $20 electric skilled purchased from Walmart.

 

A breakfast of champions above (lamb shoulder chops) and the dinner below (flanken ribs)

 

And I ended up having to leave my trip slightly early, due to some incoming poor weather, which meant, toward the end, I REALLY got to push the limits on the griddle, transitioning from 6 eggs per meal to 9, as my food plan became altered with the compressed timeline (proving, once again, that chaos IS the plan).

 

Like being back in college and trying to cram 14 people into a Honda Civic

 

Did my hotel room end up smelling like a steakhouse?  Yes, and it was incredible!  Did I set off the smoke alarm in my room?  Only once!  But did the hotel staff ever catch on?  Never once!  As I exercised good college dorm discipline and made sure to put my griddle away when not in use.  I DID walk in on the cleaning staff shampooing my carpet as they wondered why my room has picked up the delicious odor of cooked meat and tallow, but, ultimately, I considered that a fair exchange for their bait and switch kitchen based promises!

 

But I offer this story not just for the sake of entertainment (but, in truth, it was a very entertaining experience for me), but also in the vein of Aesop’s fables: hoping that we can learn some lessons from the experience.

If you get this reference, you're ancient

Because when I walked into that room and saw that microwave, there were a few different ways this situation could have unfolded, and I feel like we’ve all been down these paths.

 

I could have instantly just given up.  Saw that I was without the kitchen I was promised and decided “Guess the diet is over” and just hit up the restaurant in the hotel, gotten some Uber Eats, ordered a pizza, etc.  I’ve absolutely done that before after a long day of travel: just gave up and comforted myself with convenience and garbage food.  Hell, most Americans do this EVERY DAY: they let the day just beat them hell out of them and, by the time they get home, absent a plan, they give up and give in.  And their appearance and health reflects this practice.

When we avoid The Noid, what we DON'T avoid is diabetes

 

I could have given up in a different way: telling myself that I would just make due with the microwave.  I could have cooked eggs in a coffee cup and picked up microwavable meat options, or lived off of canned fish, chicken, beef, etc.  In this way, I would have still met the goal of the diet, but given up on my values.  I told myself I was NOT going to be eating microwaved eggs on this trip, and f**k me if I was going to microwave a steak.

A memorial wall should be built in memory of the terrible act committed here

 

But, instead of giving up, I picked a different attitude: excitement!  Yes, I will confess: when I walked into the hotel, expecting an actual kitchen and being greeted with a microwave, I experienced a feeling of disappointment and anger.  However, I let myself throw my 20 second tantrum over the matter, and then immediately pivoted (quite literally, I threw my luggage down and turned right around to get to my rental car), plugged in “Walmart” into my GPS, and set my mind that I was going to find SOME sort of plug in kitchen gadget to “get mine”.  And that was where the excitement came from: this was the joy of limits!  

I’ve written in the past about how limitations are the catalyst of creativity, and this was no exception.  I wondered what I would be confined to.  Would it be a hot plate?  An air fryer?  Hell, I’d grab an Easy Bake oven if that’s what I had available.  I knew that I wanted to spend as little as I could to resolve this, as I didn’t want my cooking implement to compromise my travel budget, and that just made the game even more fun.  How little could I spend for the biggest impact?  Which, in turn, was what got me to settle on the $20 griddle compared to the $14 Foreman Grill, which WOULD have also been an awesome choice (I’ve used one before to great effect) and it would have been a great way to honor the memory of the recently deceased Mr. Foreman, but in this specific instance, since eggs feature so prominently in the Vince Gironda plan, I needed a grill that did NOT exist in a permanently inclined state, and I also needed enough grill space to be able to get my meals made in an expedient manner. 0400 was already an early enough wake up call: I didn’t need to try to budget in an extra 30 minutes as I attempted to cook 2 eggs a time.

Never would I be so bold as to make this claim

 

It was no different when it came to the food choices themselves: this was my first time eating lamb shoulder chops and flanken ribs, but I picked them both because they were inexpensive options.  Sure: I COULD have just picked up some ground beef, but, once again, with time being a consideration, I preferred a chop/cutlet, since all you REALLY need to do with that stuff is cook the outsides, whereas ground beef technically needs to be thoroughly cooked to kill all bacteria.  Having been violently ill while traveling before, I wanted to limit my potential risk to food poisoning.  What I discovered; holy cow flanken ribs are SO easy to cook and SO delicious.  I’m definitely bringing them into my regular rotation.  And it was no shock to me that lamb was going to be amazing as well.

 

Which, again, is what this was all about: getting to yes, limitations leading to creativity, and taking away lessons learned from whatever experience we have.  Every opportunity is an opportunity to learn and grow, so long as we approach it with the right mentality and perspective to do so.  And when we encounter misfortune, we cannot change the circumstances, but we can absolutely change our mentality, which, in turn, can alter our outcome.