On The Road with Cook's Country: Test Cook Morgan Bolling's Ultimate Road Trip

Since we love stories—and food—from the road, I reached out to our Cook’s Country team to ask them about their ultimate, no-limitations road trip. First up is senior editor and resident grilling expert Morgan Bolling. Here's where the native North Carolinian would go, what she'd listen to, and most importantly, what she would eat.

My first stop is definitely going to be Queens, New York, for Greek food. I've heard that BZ Grill has some of the best gyros in New York, and I’m particularly looking forward to trying their pork gyro. The idea of a pork gyro is so interesting to me; it’s not something I’ve seen many people do. Also, I love to grocery shop at interesting places, so I plan on taking a trip to Titan Foods and Muncan Food Corporation. Thinking about the lamb prosciutto and fried pork they’ll have at the meat market makes me excited! To be fair, these are foods I don’t get to enjoy everyday.

After I’ve had enough Greek food, I’m heading over to Denver, Colorado. I’m going here to hike more than anything else, but since I’m already there, I’ll have to try some of the Mexican food that Tucker always raves about. There's a place out there called Los Chingones and their Pig Nachos dish sounds delicious.

Next, I’m driving to Los Angeles, California. L.A. has such a strong immigrant population, so that means that they’ll have really good food for me to try. I’m hoping to get some good Mexican and Thai food, and maybe even some ramen and Korean barbecue. It’s supposed to be one of the best places in the U.S. to get ramen. Who doesn’t love thick slices of pork belly and broth with a nice runny egg?

I’ve already done Austin and San Antonio, but I only had a day in each place. So I’m going back to Texas to attend the Texas Barbecue at Texas A&M University. It’s a two-day, immersive barbecue course that I would love to take. After completing my course, I’m going to treat myself to more barbecue food at Franklin Barbecue. I’ve always wanted to go there!

Before heading back “home” to Boston, I’m heading home to Charlotte, North Carolina. This may feel like a cop out, but I think my hometown has some of the best food in the nation. Where I’m from in Charlotte there’s this really great fried chicken place called Gus’s Fried Chicken. It’s just awesome. Even Bojangles, which is like a fast food joint, serves these biscuits that are impossible to beat. If I have time to make it up east, I’m visiting Vivian Howard’s restaurant Chef & The Farmer. I’ve been there a couple of times and it’s so good. Cook’s Corner is another favorite— I have a lot of good memories from there. I’ve never been to Ashley Christensen’s restaurant Beasley’s Chicken + Honey, so I’d love to make a stop there, too. There’s a lot of great female chefs in North Carolina like Ashley Christensen, Vivian Howard, and Andrea Reusings whose food I would love to try or eat again.

I’m bringing a member of the America's Test Kitchen Tasting and Testing team, who also happens to be my best friend: Lauren Savoie. She’s naturally a Californian by heart so I know L.A. will suit her. Plus, she's got a palate like no else I know and we have similar taste in music (for the most part) so I know it will be really fun. We’ve actually been on a couple of trips together. This past January we went San Francisco for the Fancy Food Show and we got to try the some of the best cheese in the world. (Ed's note: Read more about the show in “The 6 Best Things We Ate at the 2018 Winter Fancy Food Show.”)

At the risk of embarrassing myself, I'll admit that Lauren and I listen to a lot of Taylor Swift and Macklemore together. I also like acoustics and country music artists like Zac Brown and Johnny Cash. Lauren is less into those genres but she can deal with it when we’re in Texas. And we love crime shows, so we'd also listen to this really cool podcast called Crimetown, which is by the same creator of the HBO mini-series The Jinx. I mean, you need something to break up that T Swift.

I’m a big snack packer! When we used to go up to Vermont to film the Cook’s Country television show I would actually bring a picnic basket with snacks for myself . . . even though I knew there would never be a lack of food seeing that we’re filming a food show. Anyway, here’s what I’d bring:

Supermarket Snacks: Chocolate, Sour Patch Kids, Pork Rinds, and Moon Pies. 

Lauren and I always play this game where we pick what our last meal will be. We pick an appetizer, a main, and a dessert—it changes every time we play it. We also play a game where we pick five places we want to travel to and we get into these conversations about who we’d bring and why. It’s more just friends but maybe we’ll add in celebrities for this trip. Like Meghan Markle . . . I’d hang out with her.

Every place is fulfilling something different. Queens, New York is all about the food for me, L.A. is about the food but about laying out on the beach too. On the other hand, Texas is all about barbecuing and relaxing, while, Colorado is about hiking and North Carolina is about seeing family. With the way this weather in Boston’s been, laying on the beach in L.A. sounds great.

Don’t forget to check out our other team members' ultimate road trips for great destination, restaurant, and music recommendations below.

• On the Road with Cook’s Country: Executive Food Editor Bryan Roof’s Ultimate Road Trip
• On the Road with Cook's Country: Deputy Editor Scott Kathan’s Ultimate Road Trip
• On the Road with Cook’s Country: Test Cook Matthew Fairman’s Ultimate Road Trip