Plane food à la Française

I’m on Salt Spring Island right now and while I was whipping eggs for my omelette this morning, I was wishing I had bought cheese at the market when I first got here. Because an omelette just isn’t an omelette without cheese, but alas… And that got me distracted enough to think about Camembert and plane food (yes, Camembert and plane food). It was belated travel journal time. 

On my way to Athens from Edinburgh via Paris, I had the most eclectic plane meal of my trip; really, of any my travels. Also perhaps the most sophisticated, or European of economy class meals. As I’m sure many of you will agree, plane food is or can be… an acquired taste and something you eat only if you have to. Well, Air France begs to differ. 

My meal consisted of a very delicious toasted, mini, warm folded flatbread pizza type thing, an orzo pasta salad (chicken, diced red bell pepper and tomatoes, edamame, and sliced black olives – a food I was going to the land of, but don’t appreciate – aside from olive oil, which I use a lot of – oh dear…), a small dinner roll with, wait for it, a fairly big wedge of Camembert cheese – what?!? – and what I think was a mini pear tart. Maybe apple. I was tired… (4am wake up call that day) Oh, and a small but very tasty piece of dark chocolate. A bit random, but what can I say? The French just KNOW. All that was missing was a freshly starched white linen napkin. I was in economy, though. I wonder what business class had…

I had eaten at the airport, so I only ate a bit of everything, but what I ate was fantastic. The Camembert threw me of a bit of a loop, though. I’m not a cheese expert, but as far as I could smell and taste, it was GOOD Camembert and that small chunk would probably have cost a fortune back in Vancouver. 

Camembert is one of those smelly cheeses that you need to be able to get past the smell to enjoy, but it’s very nice with a good glass of white and some crusty bread. When I was eating it, I had a flashback to making chilli and Italian flat cheese bread with Sean and Claire a couple years ago. One day, I will dig back in to those photos and write about that evening and post the recipe for the bread. It was tasty.

My tummy is growling after writing about this. Time for dinner and to figure out how to stream the Golden Globes as there’s no cable here. Maybe that’s a good thing. 😉 Happy Sunday evening!