The cook can make the space feel warm and inviting, but shouldn’t matter where you’re creating that meal. It’s really about how you’re creating it and who you’re creating it for. This lap around the country felt a lot more celebratory being in the Airstream.
LA: With that in mind, are you itching to get back on the road? I mean, I’m sure you are knee-deep in the season right now, but are you starting to think about where could you go next winter or the next time you have this chunk of free time?
EF: Yeah, that’s always the conversation that comes up in October. We’re in the thick of the season right now, and anyone who is in hospitality in any seasonal place like Maine, we’re neck deep. We are just treading until we get through to October.
And then immediately once the restaurant closes for the season, we start thinking about, okay, how are we going to fill ourselves back up and get ready for another season? Come October, I’m sure we’ll be dreaming big about where we’ll be going next.
LA: I love that you said how are we going to fill ourselves back up. It sounds like traveling is the fuel you need for coming back for the summer.
EF: Yeah, we always say you should always go out to eat at the restaurants if you know the chef has just been on vacation somewhere because you’re going to have the best meal after that. They’re coming home rested. They’re inspired.
LA: Love it. What a pro-tip. I don’t know how I’m going to get access to these chefs’ calendars, but I’m going to start doing digging on my favorite spots.
You pulled off a pretty impressive road trip, I would say. For people who want to embark on something similar, I don’t know if they’re going to do three months and 10,000 miles, but how did you find the places and plot it out on the map? What’s your advice?
EF: Oh, yeah. For me, I was dreaming about places that I wanted to see, places I wanted to go. We started with those touch points, but we left a lot open and loose so that we could have those sort of discoveries, too.
That I didn’t want it to feel that the whole thing was planned out and we had to hit X, Y, and Z. Sure, we had these spots to hit, but we also had a little bit of freedom for surprise and discovery along the way, which I think is part of the joy traveling.
LA: Erin, thank you so much for sharing your travel stories and the story of The Lost Kitchen. Congratulations on developing such a beautiful story and your new show.
EF: Thank you.
LA: I will 100% be writing my postcard and sending it in and hoping that I’ve become one of those 500 sittings that get to visit.
If people want to follow along with your travels and your cooking, where can they find you on the internet?
EF: You can find our website. We’re at findthelostkitchen.com and @thelostkitchen on Instagram.
LA: Thank you for listening to Women Who Travel. I’m Lale Arikoglu, and you can find me on Instagram @lalehannah. Our engineers are Jake Lummus and James Yost. The show is mixed by Amar Lal at Macro Sound. Michele O’Brien produced this episode. Stephanie Kariuki is our executive producer. Chris Bannon is Conde Nast’s head of global audio.
Next week, an expert backpacker fresh off her own trip to Patagonia teaches us how to get out into the wilderness for the first time. We’ll see you then.
