Susan G

I'm not a frequent business traveller.........I'm a fussy four-times-a-year vacationer. With enough time to plan ahead, prices tend to be about the same, give or take $50. I will pay an extra $50 to avoid DFW if at all possible. For a state with great BBQ and wonderful Tex-Mex, that terminal is full of depressing corporate sameness. I have re-routed myself through Chicago just so I could be certain of having a good meal at Wolfgang Puck's, rather than an uncertain meal anywhere else. I can see the airlines starving their passengers in favor of pursuing their bottom line. What I find unforgiveable is terminals who don't pick up the slack, and offer more of the same greasy carbs one avoids eating on the plane! I want to have a civilized day of travel: To me, this means good, or passable food, in balanced quantities. Buffalo has outstanding sandwich wraps near the Southwest gates. Charlotte, NC has a fantastic concession with pork or beef BBQ as a sandwich or a plate, with great slaw. ABQ has breakfast burritos with scrambled eggs and green chile that make your mouth burn for hours!

With airline cutbacks affecting food service so obviously, where have you found good food at a reasonable price between flights? Have you ever organized your travel plans so you can reach a favored stop-over? I try to hit Chicago's O'Hare: It seems to be the only airport I know with a variety of good food choices.

I *adore* the food at Mu Du Noodles. But I hate the long wait for a table, (no reservations are taken), the loud noise of other patrons, and the tight spaces between tables. Ristra is incredibly expensive - and worth every penny - but for overall performance I really like Pranzo. Or the Casa Sena, if I'm splurging.

I've served it as an appetizer dish on it's own, with other side dishes of sweet-hot pickles, fried peanuts and "golden needle" mushrooms covered in sesame oil. In summertime in the Chinese city where I studied, the restaurants would all reek of this dish and cheap bai jiu..........see if you can find some bai jiu - I understand the flavors work well together!

I steam/parboil mine and then cover them in sesame oil. Yum!

Oh, but I am! I *am* there for the food! At least, I can anticipate very few comforts: There will probably be a screaming, teething baby near me, a toddler kicking my seat, the movies will be written for persons 100 points below my IQ, and the lines for the bathroom will be long. Please, oh please, give me something to soothe my very long, cramped body in the middle of this flight-from-hell.

Whoops! I misread your quote..........I don't recall *anything* about the Parker house!

I'm referring to A. Bourdain's "A Cook's Tour"............I seem to have loaned it out, so I can't give a direct quote (sigh). I believe the reference was made in the introduction, if not the chapter on Cambodia. While Ho Chi Min might have started as a busboy (we've all started at the bottom), when he left he was sous-chef. In his autobiography Malcolm X said he was a Pullman porter - a little higher up in status than waiter.

Singapore Airlines has great food - the garlic prawns in coach class stand out memorably - and plenty of snacks. I recently flew American Airlines coach class from Chicago to Rome eastbound, and business class westbound, and I was shocked! shocked! at how different the amount and quality of food is between the two classes. Business class gets appoximately five times the *amount* of food coach class does. When my coach class dinner "meal" was two ounces of chicken in gravy over oily noodles, two ounces of limp green beans, a hard roll and margerine, and a small square of tiramisu and a beverage.............dinner in business class had port,(gratis), amuse gueles, a cheese course with fig jam, very fresh fruit salad, salmon filet with lemon pepper, warmed rolls passed every fifteen minutes, etc.......and then hot fudge sundaes made by your chair. I tell ya, it made me very "class" concious!

Ho Chi Min. Not famous for cookery, but passionate in his pursuits, and studied in Paris with..........was it Escoffier? What was it about a chef's temperment that made him a leader of his people?

I think the funniest thing that happened to me was I had said items (tampons and diapers) in my trolley one time and the guy at the checkout looked at me and said: "You might as well stop and pick up a couple of bottles of JD coz you're weekend's screwed" Cheers Tom The more I thought about this, the harder I laughed! Thanks for the anecdote!

My western NY family makes it with a sweet biscuit, the usual strawberries and sugar, and then tops it with maple syrup, not whipped cream. I guess if you live in a place where all the maple trees are tapped each spring, you use what you have on hand!

I just got back from Sardinia (which was part of the Spanish empire until Italy got it back) and linguine con vonguole always came with these tiny clams. Had no idea what to call them..........my they were tasty!

Appetizer of guacamole with corn chips, dinner of steamed corn and several pounds of steamed clams. Desert: A blueberry pie. Happy Fourth of July!

This is why the Third World hates us.

Street food from vendors with carts is a good way to go.............fun, *very* inexpensive, and you'll get to have the local flavors. I especially like the Muslim lamb kebobs..........they're covered with cumin, ground red peppers and coarse salt. Beijing and Xi'an will have these.

Beans, those of us lacking an umlaut option on our keyboards *are* spelling it correctly............those two dots *are* an "e"........the cloistered monks were trying to cut down on the amount of vellum they used, and so put "e"s above the other vowels.

Yeah, that happens to me too, all the time! The clerk doesn't recognize the produce I've selected (real puzzlers, too, like ginger, snow peas, portabello mushrooms) and then asks me how I cook them! Which takes the sting out of waiting, actually! *Of course* I look at what other people are buying! And I indulge in snap judgements about their characters, habits and lives! Of course, it gets sad when you see retired men buying a single steak or TV dinner and a six pack. I *really* like seeing men buying diapers or tampons. I think, "This is a man who puts his family above pride".

I think I know where your salt cravings come from. Eating large quantities of sugar requires large quantities of water to flush out the byproducts of glycolysis. When the body starts getting dehydrated, one of the side-effects is to crave salt to retain as much water as possible. Congratulations! You're probably drinking suffiecient water for your metabolism! Another check: Urine should be clear, not golden. Unless you're taking multi-vitamins, or eating B-enriched breads or cereals...........in which case, the golden color is with you all day!

I also love the Oyster Bar - for whatever the daily special is.........and a half dozen mollusks if the month has an 'R"!

Strawberries have the best flavor when the plant is producing for the very first time.........that's why wild berries are often more flavorful than even organic ones.

$200 bucks for a jammer? I am so there! I guess peace and quiet does have a price.........and a market!!

From Monty Python's "Matching Tie and Handkerchief" An anthem about the effect of alcohol on eminent thinkers..... The Philosophers Song Emmanual Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable, Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy begger who could drink you under the table, Howard Hume could outconsume Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel, And Lichtenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel. There's nothing Nietsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the raising of the wrist, Socrates himself was permanently pissed......... John Stuart Mill of his own free will drank half a bottle of sherry and was particularly ill, Plato they say could stick it away, half a bottle of shanty every day, Aristotle Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle, Hobbs was fond of his dram, And Rene Descartes was a boozy fart: "I drink therefore I am". Yes Socrates himself is particularly missed, A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed. My favorite song as a teenager!

Not only polite, but a way of honoring someone by giving them a choice piece of something!

I find my sugar spikings get worse if I'm dehydrated or otherwise tired. I agree with the above suggestions about low carbing and nuts as snacks (I prefer cashews), and I'll add: Drink lots of water. Best wishes for a successful diet change!