A Holiday Feast, Cooked in the Cab of a Truck
Long-haul drivers are under intense pressure this season, but many will carve out the time (and the onboard space) to make steaks, turkeys and charcuterie boards.
((Just IMAGINE!!!))
MADISON, Conn. — Dina McKinney's kitchen looks like something straight out of a home-goods catalog. The spices are neatly organized in glass jars. The countertop is made of a thick walnut Boos block. The backsplash is white-tiled and shiny. The dish towels are seasonally appropriate, adorned with Santas this time of year.
Checking out all the details, you might forget that Ms. McKinney lives in a 14,000-pound semi truck. Her kitchen, crammed into a space behind the front seats of her cab, is all of seven feet long; her combination microwave oven and air fryer is just an arm’s length from the steering wheel.
On a recent night, she was parked at a service plaza off Interstate 95 near the Connecticut coast, plunging an immersion blender into a slow cooker filled with butternut squash soup that she had seasoned with a curry brick, celery and onions and let simmer all day while she drove.
“I want to feel human,” said Ms. McKinney, 56, who lives full time in the truck. “I don’t want to feel deprived of simple pleasures in life.”
That resolve extends to the holidays. Ms. McKinney, who drives all over the country, primarily transporting kitchen cabinetry, will be in her truck this Christmas Day, and has big plans for the occasion. She opened her mini-fridge to reveal a wheel of Brie, destined to be wrapped in puff pastry and baked as a holiday appetizer. She’ll roast a rosemary- and thyme-rubbed turkey leg on her rotisserie, using the drippings to season a turkey breast. Brussels sprouts will be sautéed with bacon on her butane stove. She even has a muffin tin for making sweet-potato soufflés.
Not every truck driver has Ms. McKinney’s elaborate setup. But a number of them are cooking more often in their trucks, out of necessity or a desire for healthier food, or both. . .
This Thanksgiving, Ms. Gilles, 55, made a stuffed roast duck, roasted yams, green-bean casserole, cheesy garlic mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce — all using the portable induction cooktop stashed behind the driver’s seat and an air fryer that sits on a shelf where the passenger seat used to be. (She went easy on herself for dessert, and bought a cherry cheesecake.)'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/dining/truck-drivers-cooking-covid.html?
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