On Traveling, With Kids.

Just in case you thought I do it because it was easy.

Quick note related to travel, before we get into the meat of the post. The Anna Tasca Lanza culinary retreat has invited me to teach a workshop at their Sicily property this summer, June 3-8th, and there are a couple of spots still available.

Join me as we dive into the enticing world of Sicilian vegetables, bringing salad goggles to the island revered the world-over for its terroir. In the spirit of Arty Parties (my latest cookbook), I will lead the group in off-site dining, from picnics amongst the vines, to a luncheon at local artisanʼs studio, cooking with what we find at the local markets and in the garden

I am fascinated by the flavor profiles that blend North African with its Greek, Spanish, French, Jewish, and Arab influences. Let’s get into it.

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Now, onto the topic du jour: traveling with kids.

Since becoming parents almost 5 years ago, my husband, Adam, and I have done an ill-advised amount of travel with our two toddlers. Determined not to lose myself entirely to the role of “mom,” we have schlepped these kids all over the world. Despite my best efforts to plan ahead and find local childcare (my specialty), fifty percent of our time abroad is fun, and the other half leaves us wondering why the hell we spent all this money to suffer on trains, planes and automobiles so far from home? 

My kids, protesting a flight connection at JFK

Despite how things appear on Instagram, I find the time I spend with my kids at home to be some of the most challenging (convulsive tantrums over a too-meager serving of labneh or a categorical rejection of underpants don’t make it onto my grid). I struggle to remain present. I get ants in my pants while waiting for the living room performances that never seem to happen, and I am turned off by the outsized role that Paw Patrol plays in their imaginary play (cop-aganada, I say!). Everyday, I fail to resist the urge to cook, clean, email, organize and multitask in the face of my kids’ desire for my undivided attention (I’m not sure my attention has ever been undivided, it’s not them). But when we are on the road together, I too am a child, tuned in to my senses and impatient with the urge to see/taste/feel/touch it all. And, like them, I am also frustrated and disappointed when things don’t go according to plan. We are exhausted and disoriented, and we problem solve together. 

When I was a kid, there was a period of time when my brother and I would fly with my mom, while my dad flew on his own and met us at our destination. My mother said they traveled separately out of an abundance of caution:  if there were to be a plane crash, we would be less likely to be orphaned should our parents be on separate flights. Years later, my mother revealed the truth: my father was so unbearable in airports, taxis, and airplanes, she simply refused to be his accomplice any longer. (My parents are madly in love and still together, by the way).

I applaud my mother for taking control of her travel experience, for refusing to cut lines and my father’s refrain, “we’re dead!” should we, god forbid, be less than three hours early for our flight ( this was pre-9/11). I learned from a young age that there are two types of travelers -- those who are overcome with indignance when faced with a line at security (is this really so, “unbelievable?”), and those who embrace the unpredictability inherent in leaving the comfort of home because the pay-off is yet to come. I’ll let you guess which one my dad was. 

As a teenager I invented a paradigm to manage my father’s volatile emotions in the face of imperfection at a restaurant or a wrinkle in the itinerary abroad (it was the 80s, he was a stockbroker, he carried a briefcase that was his portable phone. Tensions were high). I named his shadow self Negative Nelly and I christened his best self Positive Polly. This was a dog whistle that brought gentle awareness and levity to a meltdown that would otherwise go unchecked. When his blood began to boil because something wasn’t going as expected, I would tilt my head and query, “Was Negative Nelly invited on this trip?”

My father saw the humor in this personification of his internal battles over control, and through Nelly and Polly, he was (maybe?) able to recognize the power his moods had on his family. I inhaled Nelly’s second-hand panic attacks, but Polly imparted to me the greatest gift of all -- a profound appreciation for food, art, architecture, and the grandiosity of everyday life. Polly’s catch phrase, “It doesn’t suck!,” was always delivered with arms outstretched in a gesture of loving embrace to the incredible world.

Last summer, while on an Odyssean family trip to New York, Umbria, Asturias, and Maine, I resurrected Polly and Nelly, not for my Dad this time, but for my kids (a tantrum is a tantrum, whether you’re a full grown man or still in diapers). We defined these two fictitious ideologues and returned to them often.

Layover in JFK en route back to Los Angeles from Maine last summer.

When we showed up on the wrong day for a flight from Rome to Madrid, Red asked, “Mommy, what would Negative Nelly say right now?” In that moment, instead of trying to deflect blame for the fuck-up, pointing fingers and crying amidst a pile of luggage, I replied, “Nelly would yell and then spend $1000 to get on the flight she already paid for, then be angry about it for the rest of the day.” “And Polly?,” Red asked, expectantly. I thought about it some more and looked at my husband. “Polly would find a cheap hotel in sweltering Rome and shvitz her troubles away at an outdoor trattoria while slurping vongole.” The choice was made. 

Parenting is hard, whether you are in the comfort of a suburban home bolstered by all the toys and the routine, or if you are in a mountain cabin in Asturias with no internet and only a lofted bed for your newly-mobile toddler. We choose the mountain home, because it makes for better stories, and it’s not my job to create a world without friction for my children. It’s my hope that the more my kids eat and see, and the less comfortable they are, the less likely they are to be total assholes.

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