Text 32469, 85 rader
Skriven 2013-01-09 09:48:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: PHX 67
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Dinners at the motel.

If I pay for a full kitchen, I'm going to use it, right?
And cut eating expenses by 75% while I'm at it. So we
provisioned at Albertson's: went to the meat department and
found that the prewrapped steaks, though cheap, were not
particularly special, so we went to the butcher counter,
where some extraordinary steaks were on display, same price,
a bit over an inch, thick enough to cook properly.

Four pounds of meat, good for two meals for two hot, ditto
cold. The first two steaks I cooked on the gas grill that
the motel had kindly provided near the pool area; the others
on top of the stove, once I had figured out how to open the
windows to the unit. They were good ... excellent if I say
so myself. Rare just this side of mooing with crispy fat and
a dark crusty exterior. Yay food, I say. Yay, beef.

We also got some vegetables - potatoes, that sort of thing.
I didn't really take notice.

On sale Malbecs:

Rex Goliath - this was quite cheap, and it said it was
Argentine, so why not. Word to the wise: not. It was a
lightweight acidy wine with hardly any character. The plan
had been to have a glass and then go to the motel's happy
hour; it would have been better to do it the other way.

Norton reserva 2010 - too young but quite nice. The regular
was one of my go-to wines in the 1990s, when it was really
inexpensive. It (Malbec in general, Norton in particular)
has become popular, and demand is high, and I believe that
the stuff isn't what it used to be, but the reserva is still
quite nice, though not the bargain that it used to be and
the regular still is. The slightly overripe berry and shoe
leather went quite nicely with the fatty part of the meat;
the wine was better after sitting out a while.

UA6528 PHX LAX 1924 1950 CRJ 3D

Lilli and I abandoned each other, she to a nonstop home,
I back east. The first leg on a barbie jet was mitigated by
previous ingestion of a glass or three of cheap airport
wine. These seats are tolerable if only you have an empty
next to you. After boarding there were two empties - next
to me and the one directly ahead. Someone hurried on at the
last sec and seated himself by me. So near and yet so far.

We got in quite a bit early, about 1923, so doing the old
time travel trick; but as usual we did the tour of the
neighborhood while waiting for a gate to come free.

On the PA the entire Nutcracker Suite, including the boring
bits, jazzed to try to hipify the unhippable. There was time
to visit both United Clubs.

I was going to economize and just let the free snacks at
the club tide me over until the flight, but somehow a whiff
of burning beef fat called, so I got a sandwich, see below,
at Carl's Jr.

UA 564 LAX ORD 2301 0503 752 2B Ch9^ Empower^

The gracious but ditzy older FA bumped into several people
(including me) in her politely making way for folks in the
aisle. She kept me in Courvoisier as I stayed awake for most
of the flight. There was an okay antipasto plate - decent
prosciutto, decent bocconcini, almost ripe tomato, tasty
roast red pepper, somewhat fibrous but okay baby artichokes,
cured olives. A side salad with uncured olives and lettuce
that nobody could find a cure for. Some kind of Love and
Quiches brownie with butterscotch bits.

UA 524 ORD BOS 0611 0930 752 2B Ch9:td: Empower:td:

As there was neither Channel 9 nor laptop power on this
flight I slept through it except when the guy next to me
got apnea and woke me up (I know it wasn't me having apnea,
as after I woke up he was still honking away).


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