Our home is a five minute walk or drive from Whole Foods, our favorite local market, Piggly Wiggly, Publix and a host of other specialty food shops. I can have almost any ingredient I want within minutes. On Edisto Island, on the other hand, my options are limited and I have to make do with what I can find, like MacGyver.

Dehydration leaves you tired, anxious and queasy. The best thing you can do for yourself on an airplane is drink all the water. Every time you are offered a beverage, just say yes to good old H2O. I do, and I arrive at my destination feeling refreshed and ready to enjoy myself.The other beverages offered by most airlines aren’t even worth it, unless you are in First Class, which I am not. The coffee on airplanes is notoriously bad. (And I’m not all that picky.

A train station sandwich is positive proof that I’ve arrived in Europe. When the airplane touches down on the runway, I’m not there. As we wait for our luggage and stumble through customs, we aren’t there. When I make my way through Rome, from the airport to the train station, with three children and a month’s worth of luggage, the journey may be coming to an end, but the trip has not yet begun. I have to have the sandwich.

Road trips are fun, especially when I don’t have to take the kids. Just me, my iPod (filled with hip hop, R&B, rap and the show tunes nobody else wants to hear) and my favorite car snacks. Junk food for the road! I love a cold diet soda and a bag of spicy chips. Like Pavlov’s dog, my mouth starts to water for that combination as soon as I pull into the first gas station. But when I was younger, we had fire balls.

It seemed silly to register, since only our families and our young, mostly broke friends would be in attendance at the small ceremony. We didn’t expect gifts at all, much less expensive ones we had chosen for ourselves. Most southern towns have a shop like Non(e)such, a beautiful boutique packed with antiques, jewelry, linens and an enormous display of multiple china patterns for wedding registries. My mother got a phone call from one of the ladies there.

Have you ever smuggled delicious pancetta home from Italy? Yes, smuggled. As in, broken the law. At the end of this month, your actions may be retroactively legal. (No, I am not a lawyer, so I actually don’t know if you are absolved. So don’t go calling the feds and confessing, okay?) The ban on importing salumi, at least some of it, has been lifted.And are stateside purveyors of cured meat worried? At least one of them isn’t.

When I was little, “happy meal” meant food in the shape of a face. My parents weren’t fans of fast food and, with four kids, it wasn’t even a bargain. Banana slices with peanut butter for eyes, an apple wedge for the mouth and broken crackers and cheese for all the other features. It was fun! These days, the game has changed. I’m no artist, and my food faces are pretty lame compared to what the internet has to offer.

I was out of town for five days. I left food, real food, like vegetables and fruit, all easily indentifiable. I left enough vegetables for a large stir-fry, which I made as an afternoon snack the day after my return, so the aging produce wouldn’t go to waste. I married a man who knows how to cook, a man who shuns junk food, who once shamed me for my fast food drive-through habit. I had three wonderful sons with that man. Somewhere along the way, he chose pizza as a food group.

Do you have entertaining anxiety? I did (and I still come down with a touch of it every now and then, especially if someone important is invited). How did I get over it? It dawned on me that I had never once resented being invited to someone’s home. I never wondered, “Chips and dip? BYOB? Really? That’s it?” or “Wow. Look at that stain on the sofa. These people are real slobs.” Nope.