Hotel kitchens come in all sizes and shapes and have variable degrees of meal preparation accommodations. Some hotels have a full kitchen, which means they have a stove/oven, kitchen counters and cabinets, refrigerator and/or microwave and often a dishwasher. In addition, the kitchen is stocked with pots and pans and other cooking equipment, as well as utensils. They may also have a few kitchen commodities such as dish soap, paper towels, towels and trash bags. Other kitchens may have a sink and counter top, small dorm-size refrigerator and a microwave. Still others may have only a microwave and refrigerator. The kind of meal preparation possible greatly depends on the kind of kitchen available. It is a good idea to ask the hotel about what kind of kitchen you will have.
Planning the meals you will have over your trip depends a lot on the type of hotel kitchen you have, as well as how much time you want to spend in preparation. If you love cooking, then meal preparation might be a large part of your weekend. If cooking is not your thing, meal preparation may be only a side activity. A good way to think about meal preparation is to decide which meals you will fix at the hotel and which ones you won’t. This helps you to think about what food to bring.
After you have made a plan about which meals you will prepare in the hotel kitchen, you can prepare a menu. The menu will dictate your grocery shopping list. Be sure to include items such as salt and pepper, spices, butter and cooking oil as these items are rarely included in even a fully equipped hotel kitchen. Also don’t forget to add snack food and drinks to your shopping list. Buying these kinds of items at a hotel is typically expensive.
