Food: A Love Story (36 page)

My answer to this horrible airport predicament (and virtually every other problem in my life) is to eat. For no particular reason other than I always eat when I’m in airports. It drives Jeannie crazy. I could have eaten at home right before I left for the airport. But I still have to buy food at the airport. It is an involuntary behavior at this point. I’m not even aware of it. Like a superstitious Catholic doing the sign of the cross as they pass a church or a graveyard. It just happens. I get to an airport, check in, go through security, and immediately have to find food. I justify this behavior by telling myself that I don’t
want to be hungry on the plane, but it’s pretty shoddy reasoning. “Well, what if the plane goes down? I don’t want to have to start eating people.” I also tell myself I don’t want to eat the food on the plane. Airplane food used to be the only exception to my all-free-food-is-delicious rule, but now you have to pay for it. I realize I’m going out on a limb being a comedian who criticizes food served on airplanes, but everyone knows that airplane food is an oxymoron. Of course I still eat it, but I don’t
enjoy
it. Airplane food is unique in that it actually tastes like someone tried to make it taste bad. I mean, how can you screw up chicken and pasta? Somehow all the food on airplanes tastes like an airplane seat. Did they cook it in a seat?

Sometimes I tell myself I’m having a Quarter Pounder at the airport as a reward for dealing with the unnecessarily difficult task of getting to the airport, checking in, and going through the security line. I’m like a mouse getting the piece of cheese at the end of the maze, but
my
piece of cheese has a patty of ground beef and a bun with it. It’s a good thing I’m not a healthy eater, because it’s virtually impossible to eat healthy in airports. Healthy items are not even sold in some airports. Once I tried to buy a piece of fruit in the South Bend Airport and was informed it was only for display. Usually room-temperature prepackaged salads are the only option. “Well, I could either eat a salad that was prepared eighteen years ago, or I could eat something that won’t make me cry.”

Not all airports have the same food options. Some cities make a real effort to offer local specialties like Shake Shack at JFK and Rick Bayless’s Tortas Frontera at O’Hare, and the San Francisco International Airport is filled with some of the city’s great restaurants, bars, and cafés, but these are the exceptions. Most airports have a fast-food chain or two and then the standard airport places that you would never see or eat at unless you were trapped in the airport.

Auntie Anne’s Pretzels

If you like your pretzels doused in that fake butter they put on popcorn in movie theaters, then you would love Auntie Anne’s pretzels. Of all airport food options, I consider Auntie Anne’s a last resort. I have some dignity. I’d rather eat a bag of nuts from a Hudson airport bookstore than an Auntie Anne’s pretzel. Don’t misunderstand me. I love pretzels and have contemplated a world with only pretzel bread on many occasions, but Auntie Anne’s is not for me because I don’t find a grease-soaked pretzel appealing. One would think a shop that sells greasy pretzels couldn’t stay in business, but the airport is a captive audience, and pretzels have a great reputation. To be fair, Auntie Anne’s is not just pretzels. They also have … pretzel dogs and … pretzels with pepperoni on them and, um … pretzels rolled in cinnamon sugar and … um, that’s it. There are dipping sauces at Auntie Anne’s that are distinguished by the different ailments they cause. “This sauce causes heart disease. This sauce causes liver failure.” I’m not sure if the original Auntie Anne is still alive, but it would’ve been interesting to be a nephew or niece of hers. “We’re going over to your Auntie Anne’s. Bring your Lipitor and diabetes medication.”

Would you like a greasy pretzel or a greasy pretzel?

Chili’s Too

It seems you can find a Chili’s Too restaurant in most airports. If airports were a country, Chili’s Too would be the ethnic food. I appreciate that they add the hilarious “Too” to the name so we don’t confuse Chili’s Too with the regular Chili’s. I guess they didn’t want the mediocre food at Chili’s Too to be confused with mediocre food served at a regular Chili’s. After eating at Chili’s Too, you wonder if the misuse of “Too” was not a cute idea but an actual spelling error by the people who started Chili’s Too. I love going to Chili’s Too when I’m in an airport. Where else could I sit and watch a middle-aged guy with a mullet chew dry eggs with his mouth open while I listen to Wham! at six in the morning? Bucket list complete. “Wake me up before you go, go!”

My old stomping grounds.

Cinnabon

I do try to rationalize what I eat when I’m at the airport, but some things just can’t be justified, like a Cinnabon. It seems every airport has a Cinnabon kiosk that sells the oversize frosted cinnamon buns. I’m pretty sure Satan himself is the largest shareholder in Cinnabon. Cinnabon only sells buns with that sugary paste. There is no reason to ever eat a Cinnabon, especially not at the airport. “Well, I’m about to get on a plane. Maybe I should eat eight pounds of cake.” You usually have to take a nap halfway through eating one, which is why you see so many people sleeping in airports. The first time I ate a Cinnabon, I thought I was going to need some insulin and a wheelbarrow for the other half of my bun. It’s kind of generous referring to a Cinnabon as a
bun
, or a
bon
, for that matter. It is the size of a beanbag chair. “Should I sit in it or eat it? I guess I could sit in it
and
eat it.” There’s always a strange Cinnabon odor emanating from the Cinnabon store. It always smells like someone poured cinnamon-flavored tequila into a humidifier. On more than one occasion I’ve walked by a kiosk and gotten a cavity. Everyone knows Cinnabons are horrible for you. You can see it in the shame on the faces of patrons in line to get a Cinnabon. I’ve done some humiliating things in my life, but standing in that Cinnabon line is up there. There’s such a sense of defeat. “Hi. Yeah, can I get a Cinnabon? You can just staple it to my behind. It’s going to end up there anyway. Why am I doing this to myself?”

If it isn’t hard enough to deal with the indignity of my airport food problem, there is the added guilt I feel facing Jeannie when I get home from the trip. “Did you eat airport food again?” “Not really. I mean, I wouldn’t call it
food
 …” Before I get home, I always try to rid myself of all the incriminating evidence of my shameful addiction, such as napkins or empty
containers with the names of these objectionable establishments boldly printed on them in primary colors, but something always gives me away. Jeannie has been known to be holding my credit card bill as I return. “Auntie Anne’s, Jim? Really? And who is this
Wendy
you’ve been spending so much money on?”

BREAKFAST: A REASON TO GET OUT OF BED

I love breakfast. I just wish it weren’t served in the morning. I am a night person, so I don’t really understand why people would want to wake up early and immediately eat something. I’m not even hungry in the morning anyway, mostly because I usually ate a couple of hours earlier. The perfect situation for me would be to sleep until I’m hungry again. Unfortunately, given the fact that most businesses are open during daylight hours and young children are too dumb to sleep in, I have to get up. The only consolation prize for getting out of bed in the morning is that the meal of breakfast includes some very tasty items.

Too dumb to sleep in.

You would feel guilty about eating most traditional breakfast items at any other meal during the day, but since it’s the morning, somehow these foods are considered okay. There is an unspoken agreement: “Because you dragged yourself out of that warm, comfortable bed, you can have this stack of cakes covered in syrup glue and a half package of sausages.” What is socially acceptable to eat for breakfast seems to have neither rhyme nor reason. Sausage patties or links are fine, but having a hamburger or a corn dog from 7-Eleven is somehow just not appropriate at 8:00 a.m. Similarly, what we drink at breakfast makes no sense either. The idea of someone waking up and drinking alcohol seems rather pathetic, unless of course it’s a Bloody Mary or a mimosa. Then it’s somehow chic. We also understand that drinking fruit juice of any form is akin to drinking a sugar-and-carb shooter, and ordering a glass of orange juice with dinner would evoke a perplexed look from your waiter. Somehow at breakfast, again it is okay. When I was a kid, grapefruit juice was the Pepsi to orange juice’s Coke in the morning. “Would you like orange or grapefruit juice?” This is no longer the norm because I guess at some point everyone eventually realized people would rather be constipated than drink grapefruit juice. My dad used to eat half a grapefruit for breakfast. There was a special grapefruit spoon with a ridged tip to dig out the grapefruit sections. Now you’ll only see that spoon in museums or on
Boardwalk Empire.

There are other healthy options at breakfast, like oatmeal. Everyone knows eating oatmeal in the morning is good for you, and we know this because oatmeal has no taste. Sometimes my kids will eat oatmeal for breakfast, but they only like the flavored kind in those pouches that include a cup of sugar. I’ve discovered I’m not good at making them oatmeal, but I’m really good at making them oatmeal soup. Whenever I eat oatmeal I always feel like a prisoner or an orphan. “Please, sir,
may I have some more?” Nothing like starting off the day eating the same thing Oliver ate before he started singing the song where he and the other orphans were fantasizing about real food.