We're having a hard time out here, Folks. Less than a week on the road, and we two Bay Area foodies have shown our wimp colors, we've keeled over, and we're tenderly crying for broccoli. Click on the picture to the left for a bigger view -- that's Annie in Sedona yesterday, faced with yet another inedible meal on the road.

Our delicate palates just can't take it.

I know, we're spoiled rotten. We're used to Organic, we're used to fresh herbs and Meyer lemons from the garden, we're used to letting the ingredients shine, less is more, steamed vegetables and fresh tossed pasta, crushed garlic, rare hormone-free meat, extra virgin olive oil, Bolivian sea salt.

We're not used to American Road Food: over-priced, over-sauced, over-salted, deep fried, wilted, too faux-fancy, too fatty, leaden biscuits and goo, limp lettuce with thick orange dressing, gray gristly meat, bitter coleslaw shipped from a warehouse a thousand miles away.

Meal after meal, we make the wrong choices, get seduced by the menu language. Out here in the real world, "smothered" doesn't mean "piled high with delicious yet tender contrasting ingredients." It means "suffocated until dead."

My stepson Aaron is wise to the ways of American Road Food. He says -- and that man knows his way around a chicken fried steak -- if a menu item has the word 'Country' in its name, it's probably pretty bad. But you know you're really in trouble if 'Country' is spelled with a 'K.'

Really, the only thing safe to order is a BLT sandwich; it's pretty hard to ruin bacon, lettuce, and tomato (though they try). But not all places offer BLTs, and how many times a day can you eat them, anyway?

Not that I'm whining, not really. Hey, a week of so of this is perfectly doable ("-- And you settle down, belly of mine!"). We're having a great time, our supply of dried mangos and Cliff bars is holding strong, we're seeing amazing places and people and having a blast.

We'll be home to our Community Supported Agriculture box, our avocados and baguettes, and coffee, real coffee, real soon.