How to car snack is a very important question with many right answers. But the rightest right answer is with pickles, cheese, meats, nuts, and crackers. Yes, this is not the cleanest, easiest, most efficient way of eating in the car during a long drive, but it IS the tastiest. Unless you’re extremely coordinated and much more graceful than I am, this version of car snacks requires two people – the driver, of course, and the feeder. The feeder has the fun job of making interesting bites for the driver, and the driver’s main task is to open their mouth as wide as possible and exclaim, “delicious!” every time the feeder gives them a new morsel.

To make such tasty bites, the feeder needs to be equipped with the right materials. Firstly, I recommend cutting everything up beforehand. Chunk up Alpha Tolman, the alpine style cheese from Vermont that’s quite buttery and meaty, into small pieces, grab a salami or two (I usually go with chorizo and something milder, and we’ll slice it for you!), and cut up bread. Add Colossal Cashews, Dijon mustard, crackers, and pickles for more variation in the bites. Put everything into its own container and then all those containers into a shallow bin that fits on your lap. Don’t forget napkins and something to spread the mustard! I have used a piece of cheese as a mustard spreader in a pinch, but, while quite delicious, it is also rather messy.

Now go wild with combinations! You could start classic with a piece of bread, a spread of mustard, Alpha Tolman, and a pickle. Then branch out, chorizo, cashew, Alpha. Or salami, pickle, chorizo. Or cracker, Alpha, chorizo, mustard. The combinations are endless! And mostly they work! Go crazy! Dad and I spent three entertaining hours on our way to Maine with these car snacks, each bite getting larger and larger. We made a mess, but that’s what the napkins are for! Happy snacking!

For the love of cheese and upping my snacking game,

Kiri

P.S. - Since this is a car trip, may I recommend some podcasts for your listening pleasure? Try Item 13 from host Yorm Tagoe, a podcast about all things African food. I really like the episode (season 2, episode 23) on South African winemaking where Yorm interviews Ntsiki Biyela, the first black female master winemaker in South Africa. Another favorite is Home Cooking from Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway. I’d recommend listening to the whole thing, start to finish, because every episode makes me want to get cooking, or well, eating. Happy travels!