By the time we got to New Jersey, I was fried, Banana was cranky, and nothing seemed better than cooling our heels there an extra day. Our single adventure en route involved a stop at an old-school Baltimore seafood joint. It was the sort of place where the walls are hung with pictures of local notables from decades past who have written nice notes to the now-deceased owner about their wonderful dining experiences. The sort of place where I was—by a generation—the youngest patron there, and Banana may have been the first child in ages. Besides a few obvious regulars, there was the requisite table of blue-hairs enjoying manhattans and white wine before their house special crab cakes. Presiding over it all were two of the sketchiest wait-people I've seen in a while. Their white shirts and black pants were mostly clean. The man's teeth were so bad that Banana even talked about them later, and the woman was in that indeterminate window of thirtiesh-with-a-very-rough-history. All that aside, the crab cake was very, very good. And very, very large. Really. A good two and a half inches thick. All crab, no breading, just mayo, eggs and Old Bay seasoning to hold the thing together. In the end, Banana and I did just fine sharing the crab cake, and it made for a good break between traffic jams.
Fast forward to Monday... We hit the road early Monday morning after a day chilling out with the cousins in Montclair. I'd prepped Banana the day before that I was buying food at Whole Foods for breakfast and for the the rest of the trip. Though I probably didn't save any money with the Whole Foods run vs. fast food on the road, I can report that we lunched on caprese sandwiches—fresh mozzarella, roma tomatoes, prosciutto, and pesto on excellent crusty bread assembled at a rest stop—instead of anything prepackaged. When it came to snacks, we had cherries and local blueberries, among other things.
That's all well and good, and the rest of the drive to Maine was uneventful. Unfortunately, I am now certain that Banana is fighting something. When we arrived, she was still moody, then she rejected a smoked salmon appetizer—this from a girl who never rejects any kind of salmon. Then she decided she was too tired for dinner. As she fell asleep, she was sweaty and feverish. Hmmmm...
