American Routes

Heading back to Montana; notes on kindness; cooking away from home; generosity as holiness.

To travel properly in America you need a personalized batterie de cuisine. Literally, this is the “kitchen battery,” but it means, more essentially, the equipment one needs to cook. Of course for a road trip, portability and simplicity is a must, but a skilled cook who has mastered some fundamentals can do magic with scant tools.

I first encountered batterie de cuisine in the lovely book Honey from a Weed, by Patience Gray. Though it contains recipes, it is not strictly a cookbook. It’s more of a travelogue. Think ancient Mediterranean stone homes with rustic kitchens where food is heated over bundles of dried grape vines, mandatory fasts due to lean seasons, and shepherds fussy about the preparation of beans. If like me you gag and puke every time some red-faced guru pimp shows up on your handheld telling you to start with protein and backfill the rest, Honey from a Weed is a fine antidote to this guerrilla mentality.¹

Now and then we can use a read about life stripped to the essentials where basic tasks are the most meaningful. In my forties, these are the tasks I like best: stacking wood, trail running with our dog, hunting for meat and mushrooms, laughing with my friends, and starting the morning fire as the coffee brews.

I’ve done my damn best to rid myself of these affections in order to go whole hog on more lucrative pursuits, but the transition has proven challenging because my spirit animal is a stump in the forest. I like it when the bears sit on me. It’s peaceful out there, and given the sheer amount of vitriol and rancor and belligerence we are exposed to these days, if I can’t defect to a quiet Mediterranean island to connect to the benevolence all aswirl and afloat in the ethers, than I can at least allow the woods to heal me.

Mid-week, I dropped my Starship Subaru off at the mechanic. He was greasy and noble, dragging on a cigarette outside his shop in a beam of sunshine. Forking over my money to him felt good. It felt right, as if I was throwing some bones toward the local economy rather than sucking at the trough like the suited trolls at the top.

With my Starship running buttery smooth after some loving, I’ve been thinking about assembling my batterie de cuisine ahead of our departure for Montana. I will have a trusty metal spatula, an oiled cast-iron skillet, a chef’s knife, a stiff brush, and a small cutting board. I can cook both over a gas stove or over fire. It’s a long drive from Massachusetts, and given how much each of us hate windshield time after the five hour mark, we’ve planned for short bursts of progress followed by stays at campsites, yurts, and basic sheds.

Miss FPJ kindly designed this itinerary with my pathological aversion to urban sprawl in mind. Both of us enjoy experiencing cities from the inside, but orbiting them through multiple lanes of traffic and gargantuan billboards advertising revivalist hoedowns hurts my soul because I’m unable to unsee what all that fouled noxious clamorous congestion once was: wild lands full of wild critters. It’s best to stick to the woods and farmlands as much as possible.

In the cooler I will keep cuts of venison and local beef and various vegetables from the dirt, at least a week’s worth of good stuff. Dips like hummus and Zhoug are best made before departure. These are essential additions that brighten every dish. The American road is no place to stop and dine out. Everything out there makes you round, dyspeptic, diabetic, constipated, diarrheal, addicted, and flatulent all at once. One must be prepared to nourish the body among the temptations of corn syrup and indigestible granola bars and sweet beverages. These are the Devil’s works folks. Pack some deer jerky and keep your pedals to the metal.

As thrilled as I am to be returning to my beloved elk hunting among grizzly bears and wolves, it pains me to leave the greater Northeast, probably the softest region culturally that we have in America. It’s less diseased around here with the everybody-for-themselves ethos that runs rampant in our Western states. Plus, all those big pickup trucks give me a fright. When the bank owns your soul, cries of freedom sink in pathos. If it’s too harsh beyond the meridian, I may have to return this way and live unfettered in the forest, go full blown hermit until I lie down and feed myself to the mycelium.

But back to the batterie de cuisine, the point of which on a road trip is to ritualize the evening meal because existential disorientation is a real factor while on the move. It’s overwhelming out there when millions of people don’t know you from a toad, your only friend the American Automobile Association. It helps to never farm out labor when you are divested of your daily routines, especially the cooking, because if properly ritualized this act can wash away the agitations of modern travel. I once read that our brains evolved to move at the speed of walking. This is why flying is convenient but makes you feel like an old dirty sock on the floor of a discount motel. We are not meant to rush everywhere.

I only recently learned that the word universe means one song. This was news I needed. I myself would like this printed on a t-shirt so that every time I glance in a mirror I can be gently reminded of things beyond my narrow life. It was a long time ago, but when I hitchhiked across Turkey, many of the truck drivers who ferried me were eager to pull over on the side of the road and break bread. On the belly of their rigs, there was a compartment where they stowed small chairs and a table. Dozens of times, these drivers, away from their homes and their families, demonstrated their humanity to me by sharing spreads of peppers, olives, honey, tea, and bread. I didn’t know it then, but this was their batterie de cuisine. One wouldn’t think in the moment how long these meals would last, but generosity never expires.

You never know what you will learn out there.

1. Eat your protein, but remember to rib the gurus aplenty while you are at it.