Text 15914, 81 rader
Skriven 2011-09-20 12:36:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: alaska farewell 935
===========================
CO1476 ANC SEA 1715 2135 739 2F

As I don't have Boardroom access on my own I hung around
Humpy's hoping for a rescue from one of the bad news bears;
unfortunately, nobody could get off work midafternoon. I've
never left Anchorage in the daylight before - my flights in
years past had always been redeyes - and had never been
aware that fliers from this city were anything other than
jetlagged drunks with red eyes. In fact, I'm still not aware
of that.

The airport spent a vast amount of time paging someone with
a name that sounds very like Muammar Khadaffy. Perhaps as a
result the TSA came by with the folding tables. I doubt they
found Muammar Khadaffy or much of anything, for that matter.

Pleasant, smiling service on this flight.

Mixed nuts out of a King Nut packet. The dinner choice
was described as braised beef with Asian noodles or lasagne.

First, a salad of fresh tasty baby spinach, slightly older
romaine, a lone very tasty cherry tomato, two blobs of and
mozzarella that I didn't taste - quintessential post-9-11
corners cut catering. Speaking of which, so-called Southwest
corn chowder also appeared - a salty pink liquid, heavily
cumined, kernels of very tough corn and some vegetable dice
- usually I'm a fan of airplane soup, as it seems to be
done better than most airborne offerings, but this almost
cried out avoid me, I waste stomach space, not to mention
your sodium allowance.

The beef was the same cut United calls "short rib," but this
had been expertly artificially tenderized to the degree that
it was actually chewable - it was almost tasty; its very
salty brown sauce was okay, heavily flavored with star anise.
Broccoli (would have been better cooked with butter, rather
than oleo) and a couple strips of red pepper accompanied.
Oh yes, the noodles - round wheat-egg spaghetti deep-fried
hard, so that where it had soaked up the soy stuff it was
almost edible, but the rest was something you could break
your teeth on - also it smelled of rancid oil.

A mediocre red wine from Uma or Uno or Ema (not Santa Ema)
was perfectly appropriate for this meal.

There was "apple pie" for dessert - the more well-traveled
and culinarily adventurous among you might have encountered
it, a heavy cakelike batter with a few apples thrown in, very
lumpen. I passed, having Courvoisier instead.

Speaking of heavy, we had quite a bit of chop during the
descent and a bumpy landing.

DirecTV on this flight, getting stronger as we approached
civilization. Kitchen Nightmares faded in and out, rather
like a nightmare - but it kept me amused for part of the
flight, which ran about 10 min overtime but pulled in right
near the President's Club, so I had a good long visit there,
leaving around 11:15 and making quite good time to the North
Satellite, where they were just starting to board when I got
there. A substantial number of Zone 2 and 3 guys were pulled
over and, wonder of wonders, prevented from congregating at
the head of the regular line, instead sent to the back of
the crowd.

UA 883 SEA IAD 2344 0726 752 3E

The cabin service started off a little slow but was on the
whole quite satisfactory, once the crew got up to speed.

Chicken tortellini or tomatoes and mozzarella on a sub roll,
both cold. I asked for just the cookie and was informed with
regret that Walker's in a package was the order of the day.
So I had that with a couple Toblerones and a couple warmed
Courvoisiers, that combination enabling me to doze through
much of the flight. We landed right on time.

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