Blue Cayenne

What was your best eating experience on an airplane? Your worst?

David Lebovitz recently reposted a nostalgia piece on his food blog about airline food of yore (posted below) and it got me thinking about my food experiences on airplanes.

Today, you are lucky to get a bag of honey-coated peanuts, but it wasn’t always like that. Sometimes airline dining could be sublime.

http://www.vintag.es/2016/07/when-airplane-food-was-first-class.html

My best airplane meals were served on an international flight on Olympic Airways many years ago. Olympic was a Greek carrier and Aristotle Onassis owned the airline at the time. Onassis was a Greek shipping magnate–one of the richest men in the world. He was also the man who broke Maria Callas’ heart, and he was (briefly) the husband of Jacqueline Kennedy. His pride was the stuff of legends.

Olympic Airways, under his ownership, was famous for the luxury that came with the purchase of a ticket (in whatever class).

On our flight, no detail was missed. The plane, decorated in Aegean blues, sparkled. The cabin crew wore stylish Pierre Cardin-designed uniforms. Live piano music drifted into the economy cabin from the first class section. (Guests ate by candle light in first class, by the way.)

When it came to the food we were served in economy class, there were no tiny bags of honey-coated peanuts. The food was wonderful and portions were generous. Onassis knew how to treat his guests!

I remember being served quality wines and champagnes– liberally poured and without charge. The cuisine was strictly Mediterranean, with lots of tomato, oregano and eggplant in the dishes.I had my first baklava on that flight, my first demitasse of potent Greek coffee, and my first glass of Metaxa brandy. Wow!

That flight and our subsequent travels in Greece opened my food world up to all sorts of new delights– tart feta, kalamata olives to die for, sublime fasoulada (white bean) soups, creamy pastitsio casseroles and on and on.

I’m sitting here writing this and thinking I need to prepare some Greek dishes soon. Very soon. Stay tuned.

On the flip side (There is always a flip side in life. Right?), our worst eating experience on an airplane was a flight from Delhi to Srinagar, Kashmir (India). Our Indian Airlines flight was jammed with passengers who, by the time we took off, were pretty surly. The flight over the Himalayas was sick-to-your-stomach rough–a fact that was not lost on the babies on board whose hysterical cries added to the sense of chaos on the flight. Then, when it seemed like things couldn’t get any worse, an incredible thing happened. Just a few minutes before landing, the harried cabin crew decided to serve dinner–a decision I’m sure they (and the cabin clean-up crews) came to regret.

I remember that we had savory Indian fried donuts called vadas soaked in yogurt. I like vadas. I like yogurt. I didn’t like them served together.

About half way through the meal, the captain announced that we were beginning our descent into the Kashmir Valley. There was no time to collect the meal trays and we were told to stick them under the seats in front of us and buckle up for landing.

Trust me. It wasn’t pretty.

The yogurt slopped out of the trays onto the floor and we waded through soggy yogurt soaked donuts as we deplaned.

As we walked into Kashmir’s Srinagar terminal, a security guard asked me if I had any aspirin. That made me laugh. After that flight, I was the one who needed an aspirin!

Did you forget?

This is National Lasagna Awareness Month. Funny choice of words, I think. Who isn’t “aware” of lasagna?

Speaking of funny (well…sort of funny), this made me laugh. Reminds me of those wonderful classic Steven Wright jokes.

If you want to celebrate lasagna before the end of Lasagna Awareness Month, here is a link to a wonderful lasagna recipe I posted on Blue Cayenne some time ago for Portobello and Artichoke Lasagna. You won’t be disappointed. The recipe is a keeper and has been enjoyed a lot of my friends and neighbors. I have a neighbor who keeps a tray of this lasagna in her freezer at all times for unexpected guests.  ( Artichoke and Portobello Lasagna)

Truth be told, I’ve had pasta on my mind (and in my stomach) a lot this month. This salad turned out to be a very good dish. It’s not lasagna, but it is very good and makes a good cold meal during these sultry dog days of summer.

P.S. Tomorrow, July 31, is Jump for Jelly Beans Day. Whatever you do, try to keep it dignified. If you don’t (or can’t), please, please send pictures.

Recipe: Pasta with Marinated Cherry Tomatoes

1 Recipe for vinaigrette salad dressing (Foolproof Vinaigrette)
2 lb. red and yellow cherry tomatoes (halved)
1 C. fresh basil (cut into chiffonade strips)
2 T. capers
1 to 2 t. finely grated lemon zest
1 T. lemon juice
1/4 t. red pepper flakes (this can be omitted or increased if you prefer)
Freshly coarse-grated pepper and salt to taste
1 lb. cooked pasta cooked al dente (I used spaghetti)
1/4 C. whole pitted Kalamata olives
8 oz. mozzarella cubes
1/4 C. thin-sliced zucchini
kernels from 1 ear of charred corn

Directions:

Prepare salad dressing and slice cherry tomatoes. Combine tomatoes, sauce, 1/2 chopped basil, capers, lemon zest, red pepper flakes and salt to taste in a large bowl and let mixture marinate in the sauce for about 30 minutes.

Cook pasta in boiling water until al dente. Drain and add to tomato mixture. Add mozzarella chunks, whole pitted kalamata olives, corn and lemon juice and toss gently. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Garnish with chopped basil and thin-sliced raw zucchini. Make one or two days before you plan to serve the salad to allow the flavors to develop and to allow the sauce to absorb into the spaghetti. Drizzle with a little quality extra-virgin olive oil just before serving.

I was invited to join friends for dinner last night and volunteered to bring dessert. I decided to bring chocolate mousse (see previously published recipe on this site–) but wanted to make the presentation a little more elegant than simply serving a cup of chocolate topped with whipped cream. (Although, heaven knows, I would be the last person to suggest that there is anything wrong with mainlining straight chocolate mousse right out of the refrigerator. Been there. Done that.)

In the end, I decided that a shard of light-catching almond praline would look very pretty in each serving glass of mousse. And, in my search for a good praline recipe, I learned a bit about the history of pralines.

Or, not.

In reading story after story about pralines (including, alas, a Gulf-Coast middle school teacher’s PowerPoint presentation about the history of pralines), it became pretty clear to me that the whole praline story, like so much that you read on the Internet, takes some breath-taking liberties with the truth.

With that clearly understood, here are a few quasi-historical accounts of the origins of pralines.

French pralines made of almonds and caramelized sugar are believed to have been invented by Clement Lassagne, the personal chef of a French soldier/diplomat, Marshal du Plessis-Praslin, in the 17th Century.

By one account, the inspiration for the praline came when Lassagne discovered the Marshal’s precocious children (picture Jaden and Willow Smith in this role), fresh from cadging almonds and sugar from his kitchen, caramelizing them over a candle.  In another version, the proverbial clumsy culinary apprentice trips over a container of almonds, fortuitously spilling them into a vat of cooking caramel. Voila! Pralines! (I’d cast a bumbling–but always lovable– Steve Martin as the apprentice.) Yet another version has a lascivious Marshal Praslin presenting extravagantly gift-wrapped boxes of Lassagne’s irresistible confections to unsuspecting (but beautiful) young damsels who had caught the Marshal’s roving eye. (Too creepy to cast.)  

Over the years, a number of variations on the original almond praline have been popularized. In Belgium, for example, a praline dipped in chocolate with a soft center became popular. Some sources credit this Belgian version of the praline to a pharmacist named Jean Neuhaus who hid foul-tasting medicines inside chocolate candy, later to make a fortune in candy making (presumably without the drugs–or, maybe not).

Later, French Ursuline nuns (I’m not making this up.) brought pralines to French America. There, cooks substituted pecans in their recipes because pecans were more available in America. They added dairy, too, to get the soft, creamy pralines of New Orleans-fame. Here, according to some accounts of New Orleans’ history, a new word was born–praliniere. The pralinieres were Eliza Doolittle-esque young women who scraped together a respectable living by selling pralines on the streets of the French Quarter.

The praline in this recipe is very easy to make but takes a bit of patience (and time) to bring the sugar syrup up to just the right temperature and the perfect dark amber color. It is the kind of recipe that requires your constant attention for a few minutes.

Here is the recipe I used.

Recipe: Almond Praline
1 1/2 C. sliced almonds
1 T. unsalted butter at room temperature
2 C. sugar
1/2 C. water
Juice of half a lemon (1T.)

Directions:

Place almonds on a baking sheet and toast in a preheated 350 degree F. oven until the almonds are a light brown. Remove from oven and set the almonds aside to cool.

Butter a large baking sheet and spread a thin layer of almonds on the baking sheet. Set aside.

Combine water and sugar in a medium saucepan and stir to dissolve the sugar. Heat sugar and water mixture to a boil. As you do this, use a pastry brush and water the brush the insides of the pan to prevent sugar crystals from forming. Once your water and sugar mixture is boiling, continue to boil (but discontinue stirring the mixture) until the liquid turns a deep amber color. Watch your pan carefully and take the liquid off the heat as soon as the proper color is achieved. Stir in the lemon juice. Immediately pour the mixture over the almonds. You can tilt the baking pan to distribute the cooked sugar syrup if that is necessary.

Cool completely. Once cooled and hardened, break the praline in pieces to use on your desert. Alternatively, you can crush the shards of praline and sprinkle them over a dessert.

Here is a link to the original recipe: