A planned beautiful food day that wasn’t that then turned into different type of interesting food day..
I made a wonderful Tzatziki early this morning.
After we awakened at 7:00 and dressed and we made a lunch. I made a lamb sandwich and two BBQ chicken sandwiches. We filled a yogurt container with fruit salad and Put four dill pickles into a sandwich bag and filled another with chocolates.
When we arrived at the airport my lunch bag was searched and the TSA attendants removed the Tzatziki claiming that yogurt was considered a gel. I was pissed.
We flew to Oakland at 11:00 and ate a chicken sandwich and the lamb sandwich on the way plus a few spoonfuls of fruit salad and a pickle. a few chocolates.
We had a 3 ½ wait for our 4:00 flight to Maui. Suzette saw a wine bar near our gate so we bought a bottle of Pinot Gris from the Willamette Valley. We also strolled by several food vendors. Suzette said it would be a 5 hour flight to Maui so we should pick something to eat. Suzette selected a pear and walnut salad. I selected aChinese take out restaurant near our gate no.6 named Oak Grove that offered a boxed dinner of two entrees and the choice of rice or noodles for $12.99. There were several Chinese families ordering the box dinners, so I decided to try it.
I ordered noodles with beef and mixed vegetables and Kung Paso Chicken. I loved it and there was enough to share with Suzette. We took our ½ bottle of Pinot Gris on the plane and drank it with dinner.
The small things distinguish great food from average food preparation.
The two most important to me are the freshness and quality of ingredients and the application of skillful cooking techniques. Oak Grove was exceptional in both categories in my book and far exceeded any airport fast food I have ever experienced. The Kung Pao chicken tasted better than any Kung Pao chicken I have ever tasted. It was infused with a subtle hotness/spiciness of Szechuan chili oil in perfect balance with sugary sweetness, so that the sauce had a unique flavor of a well made sauce that unites the individual flavors of its ingredients into a unquiet unitary flavor; in this case both sweet and spicy.
The Kung Pao chicken and Beef with Mixed Vegetables also presented the other aspect of greatness, technical expertise in preparation. Each of the ingredients in the Kung Pao chicken was hand cut into small cubes. The carrots were each more or less ¼ inch cubes, the chicken, zucchini, and water chestnuts were cut a bit larger but less than ½ inch and were cubed on two or three sides at least. The green peas were Petit. Even the celery and onion were rigorously cut into small uniform shapes. I found the dish to be presented beautifully like a regiment of soldiers ready to go into battle draped in their spicy /sweet sauce.
The beef with mixed vegetables were also uniquely prepared but using a completely different cutting technique. The technique used for the beef dish was a ragged wavy cutting technique with slivers of beef, cabbage, onions, carrot, broccoli, and zucchini all cut in thin chunky strips like a sky full of clouds. The sauce on the beef was the traditional soy, rice wine, and oyster sauce thickened with corn starch.
Here is a picture of our dinners.
We then learned that Hawaii has a ban on live fruits and animals, so we dumped our fruit salad and lettuce leaves on the plane trash pick up, so we could say we possessed nothing.
I was amused by this time that all the wonderful food I had prepared for our trip was gone. I guess the message is that our food experience in Hawaii will be completely new and different.
The time difference between Albuquerque and Maui is three hours, so when we arrived at 8:30 it was actually 11:30.
We drove the rental car to the B and B and went to sleep soon after we arrived.
Bon Appetit
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