Yikes!

Unnecessary Weather

Every time I fly, the pilot makes some sort of announcement about the weather. (On my most recent flight, we got two announcements. One on takeoff, and one again right before landing.)

The airplane weather report is an interesting case of dissonance. The pilot relays a bunch of weather information, most of it useless statistics that only matter to pilots.

Example: "We're about to start our descent, ladies and gentlemen. The weather in Santa Rosa is a beautiful 74 degrees, with a slight northwesterly wind above 10,000 feet. There's some heavy cloud cover making visibility at higher altitudes about two miles. At lower altitudes, the visibility is much better."

Huh? Why do pilots think that any passengers on the plane care about visibility? Give me the temperature, give me the local time, and shut up. Please.

Meal of the Day: Willi Knows Seafood

Small plates at Willi's Seafood in Healdsburg, CA. Sara and I had lots to eat, including the above:

• Blue Points, which were so good they didn't need the horseradishy cocktail sauce
• BBQd bacon-wrapped scallops with cabbage and spinach slaw
• roasted artichoke with two sauces (lemon butter and a spicy aioli)

Throw in a spinach salad, an amazing crab cake, and (don't tell Sara, because she's a little bit embarrassed) cheese for dessert... all-in-all an excellent meal.

Meal of the Day: "I shall call this place Calistoga of Sarifornia."

The Sarifornia Café in Calistoga, CA is one of my favorite breakfast spots... ever.

The biscuits — served to me with poached eggs, hash browns, and gravy — are flaky on the outside and chewy on the inside. Very delicious.

(The town got its name, the story goes, when California pioneer and entrepreneur Sam Brannan claimed he would make the town the Saratoga of California. But he was drunk or stoned or confused, and it came out "the Calistoga of Sarifornia." Brannan's quote is prominently painted above the kitchen at the Sarifornia.)

Meal of the Day: Southern Wings

My brothers-in-law have taught me that chicken wings have rules, and that only a certain kind of wings deserve the descriptor "Buffalo." So the offerings of the bar at the Hilton hotel in Jackson, Miss. were met with a certain degree of skepticism.

These were properly fried (no breading!) and perfectly sauced (enough for lots of flavor, not so much that it makes the wing soggy or overwhelms the experience), and they were served with blue cheese dressing (even though the waiter offered me ranch).

Excellent.

Meal of the Day: Mediocrity in a Bun

Someone told me that Whataburger was the South's answer to In-N-Out. They were wrong.

I was staying at a hotel directly across from a Whataburger in Jackson, Miss. The burger was very slightly better than Mickey D's, and several miles below a Double-Double, Animal Style.

Random Acts of Wine

Last week I was up at Newman, visiting Sara and serving as a faculty member. On Saturday, Sara had the day off (and Rachel was also up at camp), so the three of us went wine tasting in the Napa Valley.

We had an amazing time at all the wineries we visited, but we had the best time at a winery called Merryvale, which we stumbled into basically by accident. It happened to be across the street from Taylor's Refresher (see below), and it was easier to make a right turn out of the Taylor's parking lot then a left. So we turned right, then pulled a quick left into the Merryvale parking lot.

We tasted a flight of white wines which culminated in a pretty good late-harvest riesling (the pourer taught us wine ignoramuses about "noble rot"). We were a bit tipsy, and we were making conversation with a couple (about our parents' age) standing next to us. They were regulars at the winery, members of the wine club who come in frequently for complimentary wine tastings. The gentleman told Rachel about how they own a number of homes in California, and whenever they're at their home in wine country, they come to taste what's new at Merryvalle. They both told us about their favorite wine, a unique dessert Muscat called "Antigua."

Apparently, the pourers at the winery have developed a sort of cocktail made out of the wine (which is fortified, so it's kind of a cocktail already) where they pour it over ice with some lemon juice. They ordered some for themselves, and then shared a sip with each of us. When Rachel announced to the pourer and to our new friends that Sara and I were newlyweds, the pourer immediately poured us glasses of the Antigua and then also made us a couple of the ice-lemon cocktails.

After receiving all this free wine, I felt obliged to buy a bottle (also, it was very very delicious, so I figured it would make a nice souvenir of the day). The next thing I know, the woman who'd been chatting with us nodded to the pourer, who explained that our new friend was buying our bottle for us.

A total stranger just bought us a bottle of wine. They accepted our sincere thank yous and left.

Sara and I were so touched by the gesture and we couldn't stop saying so. (We were a little drunk... but still. When was the last time a complete stranger bought you a gift, let alone a nice bottle of wine?)

We wrote the anonymous couple a thank-you note, and the pourer, who had the couple's address in the winery's database, agreed to mail it for us. In our note, we promised to one day do the same thing for another newly married couple.

And we can't wait to enjoy the wine!

Meal of the Day: An Incredible Burger

Medium-rare beef patty, blue cheese crumbles, barbeque sauce, thick-sliced bacon, mayo, and an onion ring on a toasted egg roll. Sweet potato fries on the side.

Burgers of this caliber are available daily at Taylor's Refresher in St. Helena, California.

Admiral Shmadmiral

I travel a lot, so once in awhile I get special perks like upgrades to first class. (Sara and I, incidentally, are becoming very used to flying first class, which is a problem when we have to sit with the plebes back in coach.)

Anyway... Despite my hoity-toity travel experience on American Airlines (my airline of choice, mostly because they treat frequent travelers like me pretty well), I'd never been inside one of their Admiral's Clubs. Today was the first time, and this is my report.

We got into the Admiral's Club in the first place because I was flying on a full-fare first class ticket. Of course, I didn't actually plop down $2500 for a plane ticket from BOS to LAX, but apparently tickets purchased with miles count as "full fare."

[This, by the way, is a chance for me to point out the fact that virtually no one actually pays full-fare for first class tickets. On any given flight, the vast majority of the people sitting up front are doing so because they (a) are an elite frequent flier who got upgraded; (b) flying somewhere having used frequent flier miles to purchase the ticket; or (c) they're sitting in their seat having used tickets pre-paid for by their business, an arrangement that gets the business certain financial incentives (like the ability to hop on a plane with very little notice), but also gets the fliers full-fare tickets that are easily upgraded. The point is, a very small percentage of people in first class are actually "first class" people who paid "first class" dollars. Most of them are just people who have to fly a lot for their jobs. But I digress...]

Getting into the Admirals Club in the first place was a pain in the ass. Several months ago, AA sent Sara a coupon that entitled her to a one day pass in the Club and $100 off the membership fee (which is $500/year or something like that). I think the idea is that AA saw that Sara was flying pretty frequently, and that maybe if she saw how relaxing and wonderful and great the Admirals Club is, she'd be willing to pop for the membership.

The pass expired at the end of April (and we forgot to use it when we flew to Chicago for Passover), but I brought it along anyway. I figured that I might be able to show a sad face to the Admirals Club desk attendant, explain that it was our honeymoon, and she might find some way to honor the coupon. No such luck. The lady looked at Sara's ticket (which, unlike mine, was a purchased coach-class ticket plus an upgrade to first using miles... the reason why her ticket was done this way is a blog post unto itself, though probably more boring than this one), and frowned. "The coupon's expired and you're not on a ticket that makes you eligible for the Club. Do you fly here a lot?"

"Actually, I fly quite a bit. Probably even more in the next year," I told her.

"Well, then you should think about buying a club membership."

The look on my face showed her that we were not Admirals Club type people, but rather normal people who were trying to use an old coupon to slide our way into the jet set lifestyle.

She said, "Sorry," then looked down at her computer screen and promptly began ignoring us. Sara stole a candy from the jar on the desk, and we made our way out, back to the manger where we came from.

Not twenty steps out the door, I hear someone calling me. "Mr. Barkin... Mr. Barkin..."

It was the desk agent from the Admirals Club.

"You didn't tell me that you have a full-fare ticket," she told me.

"I don't," I answered, incredulously.

"Well, if you bought your ticket with miles, you have a full-fare ticket, which entitles you to access the Admirals Club. Follow me."

So we did, and that's how we got to spend an hour in the Admirals Club. And what an hour it was!

First, we were entitled to free pretzels. They had this giant punch bowl full of them. There were at least, like, five or six pounds of pretzels. Also, we were entitled to free — self-serve, I should mention — lemonade, sweetened iced-tea (made from powder, I'm quite sure), coffee, and hot tea. There was a cash bar, where there were a number of tables, all occupied by people with laptops. Then there were several large rooms filled with furniture out of a doctors' office waiting room circa 1989. (And in one of those rooms there was a big-screen TV — a big, old fashioned big-screen, also circa 1989 — blasting CNN.)

[I should also note that there were two rooms full of little office cubicles where people who have serious business to do could hole themselves up with their laptops. I didn't avail myself of this opportunity, seeing as I was on my honeymoon, but they were there, and I presume that they're useful for people who can't miss a single second of work time.]

The place was miserably crowded, and at first Sara and I couldn't even find a seat in the section with the less-than comfortable chairs. Finally we did. I read a magazine. Sara read a book. Then we headed to the gate and boarded our flight.

So the point is this: I have no idea what kind of crazy person ponies up the money (or the miles — you can get a one year membership for about the same amount of miles as two domestic coach-class round trips) for this crap. I guess if you're someone who works from the road, it might be worth it to have your company pay for the membership so you can have some quiet office space in most major airports. But anyone else? I don't get it.

You're basically paying a bunch of money for the privilege of not sitting near the unwashed masses. That's all you're getting. You don't get food. (Okay, you get pretzels. But it's not like they had complimentary turkey sandwiches or eggs benedict or pea soup.) You don't get a beer. (Well, you can get a beer, but you have to pay for it, just like at the bar in the terminal.) It's not even that quiet, and you're not even guaranteed a seat. You get wireless internet (which Sara and I didn't get... only paying members get that, not freeloading first-class ticket holders or Platinum Amex customers), which I guess is nice, but it's probably a better deal to spend the money on a T-Mobile Hotspot membership, so you can get wireless in places other than the Admirals Club.

Before going through security, Sara and I had our last honeymoon meal in an airport bar/restaurant. We ordered a couple of drinks (which cost about the same as they would have in the Admirals Club, if not less... not to mention the fact that the bar had far more beers on tap than the Club did), ordered some fresh seafood (not an option at the Club), and had a nice time. There were several big flat-screens near our table, showing sports highlights or the news, or the financial scroll.

The Club had one ancient TV, two crappy beers on tap, and no food. Why would I pay for the privilege of sitting on a crappy, torn couch in there, when I can sit in this swanky new restaurant in the main terminal?

I can understand people paying for luxury if dropping a few bucks of their wealth buys them something that is actually a benefit to them. But paying to sit in an Admirals Club is basically just paying to sit around with a bunch of people who are all also paying for the same thing. That's all it really gets you, and that doesn't seem to me like much of a privilege. It sounds more like a waste of money.

Meal of the Day: Eggplant Soup

Eggplant soup (!) with zaatar yogurt, part of one of the best meals of my life. A creation of Chef Erez Pinhas at Abba in Orleans, Mass.

Other parts of dinner: fresh mussels (harvested earlier in the day) steamed with coconut milk, pineapple, and Thai spices; grilled foie gras with a red wine gastrique; lobster pad thai; reisling from the Golan Heights winery.

Meal of the Day: Lox Sandwich

Lox on wheat bread with sprouts, cucumbers, lettuce, red onion, and herbed cream cheese. Part of the lunch menu at Café Alfresco in Brewster, Mass.