WELCOME TO OUR KITCHEN: Let's talk about snacks for a road trip!

The best part about road trips? Snacks in the car! We have a list of our favorites. Maybe you can add them to yours.

We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, veteran cookbook authors who are about to publish our thirty-seventh cookbook. We've got a passion for food and cooking that we'd like to share with you.

Plus, a one-minute cooking tip about coolers. And what's making us happy in food this week.

Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:

[00:39] Our one-minute cooking tip: keep a cooler in your car when you go shopping.

[02:22] Road-trip food: snacks to take in the car, the best treats to have on hand, and our favorites.

[15:22] What’s making us happy in food this week: loaded baked potatoes and an East Indian inspired trifle for dessert.

Episode Transcript

Bruce (00:01):
Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

Mark (00:04):
And I'm Mark s Scarborough.
And together with Bruce, we havewritten three dozen now, plus one,
three dozen plus one in cookbooks.
It's going to be published this summer.
We'll tell you more about that inanother episode of this podcast.
But for now, this is our.
Podcast about food and cookingthe passions in our life.
We've got, as is typical,a one minute cooking tip.
We're gonna talk about road trip, food,food to take in the car on a road trip.

(00:27):
We just came back from one, soperhaps we have some ideas about
what to do, and we'll tell you what'smaking us happy in food this week.
Let's get started.

Bruce (00:39):
Our one minute cooking tip.
Keep a cooler in yourcar when you go shopping.
It keeps frozen, things frozentill you get home from the
store, especially in summer.
Now, mark already taught me thatSoutherners know this, but I'm a Yankee.
I didn't know this till I met him.
So yeah, you do that andwhile we're at it and Wait,

Mark (00:57):
can I just stop?
You don't have to keep abig ass cooler in your car.
You can keep a little small.
Mm-hmm.
And so called.
Beer cooler in your car.
It doesn't have to be a big thing toget ice cream home from the supermarket.

Bruce (01:08):
Well, and all those frozen onion rings.
And if you do a lot of frozenvegetables, you want a frozen.
Yeah,

Mark (01:13):
if you're gonna do a big box store run, you need a big cooler,
but you can use a smaller onefor just regular supermarket run.

Bruce (01:19):
And while we're at it, here's another tip.
Get all your frozen food last atthe store before you check out.
Don't put all the frozen stuffin your cart and then spend 45
minutes going through the aisles.

Mark (01:29):
And while we're at it, if you pack your own groceries, make sure you put.
The frozen food in the same bag or thecold food, like milk and frozen food.
Mm-hmm.
In the same bag.
Okay.
Before we get to our next segment,uh, the podcast, the big segment about
roadtrip food, let me say that it wouldbe great if you could subscribe or like
this podcast or even write a review ofit on whatever platform you find this on.

(01:54):
That would be terrific andhelpful in the analytics.
As you know, we are otherwise unsupportedexcept for your help in doing just that.
There's also a Facebook groupCooking with Bruce and Mark.
We'd be delighted toinvite you to that group.
There you can find more talk fromthis very episode of the podcast.
Plus a series of cooking and lifestylevideos that we are always posting.

(02:16):
Okay.
Up next road trip food.

Bruce (02:22):
Some people are road trip people and some people aren't.
Road trip people.
Yeah.
Oh, who wasn't?
And they tend to marry each other.
Who

Mark (02:30):
wasn't on road, road trip or

Bruce (2) (02:32):
something.
Tend to

Mark (02:32):
marry each other.
Yeah.
What Texas Boy was a road trip person.
And what?
New Yorker wasn't a road trip person.
Person.
I haven't, IT been in a car

Bruce (02:41):
for years.
Yeah.
When you met me.
And why didn't you like car trips?
Well, I took taxis, but why didn't Ilike, because I get car sick if I'm
sitting in the back or if I'm not driving.

Mark (02:51):
What happened when you were a kid and you were sitting in the back of a car?

Bruce (02:54):
Oh, my mother would smoke in the car uhhuh and I would spend
the entire, and this wasn't just akid, this is up until I was in my.
Thirties and I would spend the entiretime in the car with my shirt over my
face and opening the windows and havingher yell at me to close the windows.
It was disgusting.

Mark (03:10):
There's nothing like smoking in a closed window car to just really,
uh, give you the full experience.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So we recently went on a road trip.
We took a trip down to see our literaryagent, and then on to see Bruce's
cousins who live in Washington DC.
And then we did, uh, somethingthat I wanted to do probably for.
40 years, and that is we wentto the Gettysburg Battlefield.

(03:31):
I totally geeked out on history.
I'd read a couple of giant six and 700page histories of Gettysburg Battle.
I was totally prepared for this thing.

Bruce (03:42):
I was just shocked that it was.
As small as it was.
You know, they were talking aboutridges and hills and I was expecting
mountains and cliffs and No, it wasn't.

Mark (03:51):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was really small.
Anyway, and then we went on on the roadtrip for a while and got back home.
It was a big, long, big circle tripback to New England, and of course
you can imagine that our car was full.
Of snacks.

Bruce (04:04):
Well, my sister has a theory and she's absolutely right and
'cause she does love road tripsand she says snacks are essential.
They're are.
It's Julie's theory of road trips.
Snacks are essential.

Mark (04:16):
So here's the deal about snacks in a car and we've got several tips about
road trip food and snacks in a car.
And you probably know this one,but I just wanna reiterate it and
that is snacks for a car trip.
Do not.
Needs silverware.
You should not have to take outa fork or a knife and for, for
god's sake, a knife fork and aspoon in order to eat in the car.

(04:38):
Sometimes Bruce and I have stoppedand gotten a sandwich in the car.
This is always less thansatisfactory because.
In the end, let's say he'll be drivingand I'm sitting in the passenger
seat and I'm having to wrap thesandwich repeatedly in napkins.
Mm-hmm.
So it doesn't drip allover him as he drives.
It's never completely satisfying.
And it's also, I have tosay, not completely safe.

Bruce (04:58):
It's not, and sometimes you're lucky.
Even though you have great snacksin the car, you're lucky and you
find a good restaurant because evenon a long road trip, a restaurant
is often a nice thing to go into.
We were coming home once fromQVC in western Pennsylvania.
We were selling one of our booksand it was really bad weather.
We were trying to get home, butwe were hungry and it was late.

(05:19):
It was like 10 o'clock at night.
And Mark.
Was driving and he said, seeif you can find anything open.
We're outside of Scranton.

Mark (05:26):
And

Bruce (05:26):
I asked, get

Mark (05:27):
Dun Mifflin country,

Bruce (05:29):
right?
And I said, well, there'sa Mexican restaurant that's
showing up with good reviews.
Now I'm thinking a Mexicanrestaurant outside of Scranton.
I don't know.
But we went.
So we go and we're driving there, we'refollowing the directions on ways, and it's
taking us into this neighborhood, right?
These are houses.
There weren't any restaurants here.
Turned out somebody was runninga restaurant in their living

(05:50):
room, and it was some of thebest tamales I've ever had.

Mark (05:54):
Okay, but that's finding a restaurant.
You promised a section on road trips.
Well, that was road trip food.
No, we were on a roadtrip and we got lucky.
I, I we're talkingabout eating in the car.
I thought, okay, fine.
There are all kinds of restaurantsout there and I'm sure you know.
How to find them.
But it's always great to try to findthe local places because let's face it,
in this economy and in this world, it'sgreat to support local and small, mm-hmm.

(06:19):
Businesses.
Mm-hmm.
Rather than do the easy thing,which is to pull off from the chain.
You know how to find these places,you know, all the apps and.
Best to support a local business insome way, although again, you are
not gonna get exactly what you know.
That's the, the beauty, the attractionof the big chain places is you can
get exactly what you already knowyou're gonna get, but maybe you

(06:41):
should venture out a little bit.
Okay, so let's talk aboutinside the car itself.
Um, inside the car itself isreally, uh, difficult in some
ways to get decent snacks for it.
But at the same time, there'sall kinds of good things to try.
And I think in our car, for Bruceparticularly, jerky is just the king.

Bruce (07:00):
Oh, I love it.
No refrigeration.
There are so many varieties.
This last trip we went into alittle local organic market.
We, and they had quite.
An array of jerkies.
And what did

Mark (07:13):
mark

Bruce (07:14):
it?
You got the vegan jerky made from soy.
It was actually better than theAustralian jerky that I bought,
although mine was spicier.
I liked that, but mine was

Mark (07:25):
cheaper as vegan jerky.
It was much cheaper,and I actually loved it.
It was this maple Chipotle vegan.
Jerky been formed, ofcourse, as it processed, yes.
But it was a reallygreat treat for the car.
And I should say, and you probablyknow this, uh, better than I do,
but when you get snacks for the car,make sure you don't just get a bunch

(07:46):
of carbonated stuff and make sureyou don't get a lot of, uh, flavors.
Make sure you do have water.
We learned about.
Carbonation on this trip, didn't we?

Bruce (07:55):
Well, I bought two big bottles of water in that same organic market,
and I didn't know they were carbonated.
Mm-hmm.
I didn't read the label carefully.
Mm-hmm.
And so they were getting shakenaround in the back of the car.
Mm-hmm.
And then when I carried the bagand then you were driving and
I opened one uhhuh and it was.
Like it was a shower.
We had

Mark (08:14):
a little shower in the car.
We

Bruce (08:15):
did.
It was our own mini ecosystemhurricane going on in that car.
We lived in a

Mark (08:19):
terrarium for the next 50 miles.
We

Bruce (08:20):
kind of needed windshield wipers on the

Mark (08:22):
inside of the car.
It was really disgusting.
Uh, I should also remind you thatfresh fruit is always great on a car
trip, and you probably know this.
But, uh, let's face it, if youdon't have proper refrigeration,
even berries will go bad on you.
Blackberries will go in a day ortwo in the, the car, and they get so

Bruce (08:39):
moldy.

Mark (08:40):
Yeah, blueberries will start to get mushy, but

Bruce (08:42):
that doesn't mean don't buy them, right?
So buy them, but eat them first.
Eat the fresh fruit first.
Although oranges are fresh andthey last, so they will give you
a good almost a week in the car.
But go for dried fruit onceyou finish up the fresh fruit.
And also know that if you're on atrip for more than two or three days.
You can stop and replenish, right?
Mm-hmm.

(09:02):
Rather than looking fora restaurant, right?
Look for a small, little, uh,health food store, organic market.
Or even if you need to, you can go intoa Whole Foods or a Trader Joe's, and
sometimes that's a lot better for youthan stopping at the fast food shop.

Mark (09:17):
Well, you know, to be honest with you, trader Joe's.
So set up for snacking.
Mm-hmm.
Because so much of it ispackaged food in various ways.
So a Trader Joe's is a greatchoice for our road trip.
'cause you can really stockup, and I think Bruce is right.
Don't just stock up once.
You should stock up over several days.
Because the other thing is whatyou want today is not necessarily
what you want in three days.

(09:37):
Mm-hmm.
And it starts to look kind of.
Icky, as you stare at that box ofcrackers for three days, it starts
to look kind of gross after a while.
So it's best to to, tokind of do this repeatedly.
We did this with my brother and my nephew.
Uh, when, when we went to bury my mom, uh,after she died in December, we took an.
Eight and a half hour drive fromwhere my brother lives to where

(10:00):
my mom's cemetery plot was.
We went on this gigantic road tripand then eight and a half hours
back the next day after her service.
So it was an extensive road trip, butwe bought lots and lots of snacks and
my brother kept saying, snacks are key.
Snacks are key.
'cause he was sitting there drivingand eating, I don't know, you know, um,

(10:22):
cinnamon coated nuts out of a bag and he.
Just kept sayingrepeatedly, snacks are key.
And I thought it was, and jerky was

Bruce (10:29):
key on that trip.
We stopped at a truck stop in Missouri.
No, no,

Mark (10:33):
no, no, no.
We didn't stop at a truck stop.
This tells for you whata New Yorker you bar.
What did we stop at?
It was Bucky's.
Uhhuh.

Bruce (10:38):
It's a truck stop.
No, it's not.
It happens to have 200 gas bump.
It's a lifestyle.

Mark (10:44):
Bucky's is a complete lifestyle.
So we get

Bruce (10:45):
into this thing that's the size of four football fields at least.
And.
One entire wall is the jerky bar.

Mark (10:53):
Yep.

Bruce (10:53):
And they had dried meat from every animal that walked or swam or human flew.
Human,

Mark (11:01):
human.

Bruce (11:01):
Human.
Okay.
Go on.
Interesting.
That didn't even ask for that.
Yeah.
That would've been,

Mark (11:05):
I'm sure they sell it at Bucky's.
They sell everything.

Bruce (11:08):
They sell everything at Bucky's and we stocked up.
They had the fudge factory there.
I, I just

Mark (11:12):
wish you could have been at Bucky's with me and watched my New York Jewish
husband walk into Bucky's and it was.
We were bearing mom on Christmas Eve,so it was the day before Christmas Eve
and the whole place is Christmas treesand Christmas sweaters and people buying
Christmas presents, going to Bucky'sto do Christmas shopping and pick up
the stocking stuffers and all that.
It was packed, and I wish youcould have seen my New York

(11:33):
Jewish husband walk in there.
I wish you could have seen thelook on his dumbfounded face.
And there was this look of.
Utter, um, astonishment and contemptand revulsion and attraction.
Mm-hmm.
All at one second.

Bruce (11:46):
There were probably 10,000 people in there, and I bet I could not have
gotten a minion together if I wanted to.
I

Mark (11:52):
bet you most people don't know what a minion is, but
okay, so it goes Google it.

Bruce (11:57):
Google

Mark (11:57):
it.
Yeah.
Um, again, let's go back toshopping around for snack food.
We often find that really greatsnacks come from, let's say
the Korean food market chain.
Mm.
H Mart.
Oh gosh.
Which is across the country, everywhere.
Mm-hmm.
And we find that the H Mart has great.
Choices of interesting soy flavored chips.

(12:20):
And I mean, listen, you don'thave to get those shrimp crisps.

Bruce (12:23):
Oh, what about the just the dried fried whole fish.
They're so fabulous.
Or just like eating potatochips, but they're actually fish.

Bruce (2) (12:30):
Yeah.

Bruce (12:30):
And they're wonderful.
You get eel that way.
It's like there's some amazing stuff youcould try, but you have to be open to it.
You'll also maybe find fruitthat you hadn't seen before.

Mark (12:40):
It's true.

Bruce (12:40):
Cut up.
Beautiful hammy melons and other fruitsthat you may not be familiar with,
that you should try on your road trip.
And

Mark (12:46):
you know, we took a road trip in September to Quebec and we
went out to the Gaspe Peninsula.
And I don't want to tell you about theGaspe Peninsula because I don't want
you to go there because I don't wantanybody else to know about the Gaspe
Peninsula in Quebec because it was soincredibly overwhelming and gorgeous.
It was sticking.
Out like a thumb into the Gulf of St.
Lawrence with giant mountains inthe center of the chocks, and then

(13:08):
these beautiful beaches along the St.
Lawrence.
Just, it's an amazing place.
But we took this road tripfrom our house in New England
around the Gas Bay Peninsula.
What, for 15, 16 days?
Yeah, we were

Bruce (13:18):
gone a little over two weeks.
Right.

Mark (13:20):
And we were Googling and doing a lot of searching for various
places along the way to pick up.
Picnic and car food snacks.
And we ended up at aton of small fish mies.
They were

Bruce (13:35):
everywhere in that part of the world.
And they had standard smoked salmon, whicheverybody knows about, and smoked trout.
But we smoked

Mark (13:43):
mackerel.

Bruce (13:44):
Ah.
We found things we've never tried before.
Like marinated welks?

Mark (13:48):
Yeah.

Bruce (13:48):
Oh, they were just,

Mark (13:49):
they called it snail salad is what they call it.
C, yes.
C

Bruce (13:52):
snail.
They were so delicious and chewyand vinegary and beautiful.
We had smoked scallops.
We had, uh, smoked cod cheeks.
We did.
They were amazing.
We did.
And

Mark (14:03):
because smoked cod cheeks in olive oil, it was really kind of astounding.
Now,

Bruce (14:06):
those were things that we had at a.
Picnic, not, we did noteat those in the car.
They would've required,

Bruce (2) (14:11):
that's messy.
A

Bruce (14:12):
fork.
And they would've required paper towels.
And let me say this about eating in thecar, you're eating with your hands, right?
You're also stopping every now andthen to fill the tank up with gas.
Your hands are touching things.
Yes.
Keep a lot of hand sanitizer in the car.
Because you're in stores, you're ingas stations, and because you're eating
with your hands, it's a good idea justto make sure your hands are always

(14:32):
sanitized because it's a road trip.
You don't want to get sick.

Mark (14:35):
Oh, God.
Um, yes, it's always a good ideathat your hands are sanitized.
Consider that bait andmarriage advice too.
It's good advice to haveyour hands sanitized.
Make sure, as Bruce says, don't

Bruce (14:44):
limit it to your hands.

Mark (14:45):
There's a cooler, oh God, there's a, a cooler and the car is important.
As Bruce says, A big widerange of choices are imp.
Or for road trip snacks.
All these things make a roadtrip much more enjoyable.
And of course, don't forget your playlist.
Okay.
That's our road trip sectionof this podcast episode.
We hope that you enjoyed it and wehope actually that you'll tell us

(15:07):
what's making your road trips better.
You can do that in the Facebookgroup cooking with Bruce and Mark.
We'd love for you to join us thereor find us on Instagram under
Cooking with Bruce and Mark up next,as is typical, the last segment.
Our podcast, what's makingus happy in food this week?

(15:28):
Okay, so I'm gonna start.
Okay.
I never go first, but I'm gonna start.
And what's making me happy in foodthis week is a loaded, baked potato.
And I know this really is funnyand downscale, and it doesn't
sound like the typical nine coursedinner party that Bruce makes, but
I love a loaded baked potato and I.
Ask for them for dinner every once ina while, and we had them last night,
in fact, and it was so great to sitthere with the bacon scallion cheese,

(15:53):
sour cream butter, baked potato.
I notice the dairy emphasis here, bakedpotato and have that for my dinner.
I love loaded baked potatoes.
In fact, my sister-in-law's mother.
What do you call yoursister-in-law's mother?

Bruce (2) (16:07):
Your sister-in-law's mother?
I, I guess so.
You call, call my brother's mother-in-law.

Mark (16:11):
Yeah, I call her Suzanne anyway, um, so my sister-in-law's
mother made a baked potato bar oneChristmas when we arrived in St.
Louis, where they all are.
And it was a really nice thing toget off the plane and have just.
Tons of big baked potatoes andthen a billion toppings strewn out.
Mm-hmm.
Across the counter, things you wouldn'teven really imagine necessarily.

(16:33):
Normally, like salsa and beans, salsa andall this stuff to put on baked potatoes.
It was a spectacular way tostart the Christmas holiday.

Bruce (16:41):
Well, my favorite topping from those, uh, toppings yesterday,
I cooked my own little red beans, andthen I sauteed them with scallions
and I put in pickled red onions.
And, uh, is this what's makingyou happy and food this week?
No, I'm just adding that,that was really delicious.
That's what made me happy onthe baked potatoes last night.
Oh, okay.
But what's making me happy infood this week is something
that I'm going to eat tonight.

Mark (17:02):
Oh.

Bruce (17:03):
And we are having people over for dinner and I'm making, I know that's

Mark (17:05):
making you happy yet, but do go.
Well, it's making me

Bruce (17:07):
happy making it, 'cause I've already made parts of it.
It's a dessert, and Idecided to make a trifle.
Now, we've talked in the pastabout how Mark and I come up with.
Recipe ideas and concepts, andthis is sort of how it worked here.
I wanted to make a trifle for dessert,and because I'm doing a lamb curry
for dinner, I wanted to give EastIndian flavors to this trifle.

(17:28):
So I made the cake layers are a genissponge, and I put a little garam
masala in with the flour to give itjust a little bit of exotic flavor.
And then.
I poached pears in a chai tea syrup.

Bruce (2) (17:41):
Yum.

Bruce (17:41):
And so the pears are gonna be layered with a little bit of that syrup.
I made a coconut milk creme patthat's gonna go on top of that.
What's it?

Bruce (2) (17:49):
Creme pat

Bruce (17:49):
creme patisserie.
It's just pastry cream.
It's the French way ofsaying pastry cream.
Okay.
I made candied cashews that I'm gonnachop up and sprinkle in the layers.
So crazy.
And I'm going to put an Italian meringue.
On top of the whole thing, this,

Mark (18:05):
this is so depressing.
Next to loaded baked potato.
But go on dude.
Go on.
So that is

Bruce (18:10):
making me happy.
And I also bought a new ingredientI'd never seen before and it was
called for in my lamb curry recipe.
And it's iris water.
There's an Indian name for it andI'm not gonna remember what that
is, but just like you can getrose water or orange flower water.
This is.
Iris water.
And what I've read is that youcan flavor desserts with it.
So I may put a few dropsin the Italian meringue.
Oh, to give a little floralscent to the top of that.

Mark (18:32):
There may be a veto coming on that one.
Uh, I don't know that I want my,my Italian meringue adulterated.
Oh, Iris Water.
Uh, we'll see.
But this is part of thenegotiation of food in our house.
Okay.
That's our podcast for this week.
Lemme say that we do have a newsletter.
You can sign up for it onour website, bruce mark.com.
Scroll down the.
Opening page, you'll see a wayto subscribe to the newsletter.

(18:55):
Unfortunately, you cannot subscribeto the newsletter via Facebook or via
Instagram, and I can't capture you therein order to bring you to the newsletter.
And it's best in any event that you notput your email address on social media.
So you can find that on ourwebsite, bruce and mark.com
or clicking bruce and mark.com.

(19:15):
And you can sign up for ournewsletter there, which is.
Sometimes connected to thispodcast, but often not.

Bruce (19:20):
Let me just say, you should never put any personal
information on social media at all.
No.
And but you should.
Go to our Facebook group Cooking withBruce and Mark where you can tell us
what is making you happy in food thisweek, just like we do every week.
'cause we want to know what is makingyou happy here on cooking with.