Our love of eating combined with our intimate knowledge of airplane food means we always carry a homemade meal when flying, just in case. Sure, we'll see what the stewards are offering from their airplane food carts, as every now and then what's behind the foil is not too shabby, but the risk of being left hungry at 35,000 feet above ground is one we're just not willing to take.
Prem is usually in charge of producing the core of our airplane picnic, while I will throw in extras such as nuts, fruit and chocolate to keep us satisfied throughout the entirety of our journey. Prem's airplane picnic specialty is a sandwich. Easily transportable, offers variety and flexibility in its ingredients, and produces little mess are reasons that make this our best option.
For our recent trip from New York City to Bogotá, Colombia, the menu was no different.
First, Prem started with the bread. Unfortunately we haven't found a very soft or moist gluten free bread that we love, so for now we make our sandwiches with Free Bread's MOXY loaf and count on the sandwich ingredients to cover up any dryness. (Really, the best way to eat this bread is toasted with lots of butter; mashed avocado and poached egg optional.) On the bread he spread butter, quince paste and dijon mustard. Next he layered Prosciutto di Parma, wilted spinach and Comté cheese. The result was a thick, hearty, sweet and salty sandwich guaranteed to satisfy us on our flight. Each sandwich cut in half and wrapped in foil made for easy handheld eating when the time came.
One of the benefits of a sandwich is the creativity it allows for. This sandwich might have jam next time, a different type of cheese, salad greens instead of spinach and maybe even sliced hardboiled egg thrown in. Making a sandwich allows you to mess around with what ingredients you have in the kitchen, or explore varieties at the market or grocery store.
I don't even remember what Delta offered to eat on this evening's flight, but I do remember that we very much enjoyed our airplane picnic of homemade sandwiches from row 37.