Eleven Hour Flight: Salmon and Spoons

So I had a lot of things to say before I even got to Russia, thanks to Singapore Airlines. They happened to be the cheapest flight available at the time, and they’ve got amazing in-flight service (which is vital on any eleven hour flight). I was incredibly excited when we got hot towels. Twice! I can only remember seeing those in the Ironman movie on the billionaire’s plane. And this is a picture of the meal’s classy appetizer: “Celeriac Salad with Smoked Salmon.”

Fancy looking, huh? The named sounded so…exotic. Alas, it went uneaten. It smelled like some sort of chemical that I couldn’t quite place (rubbing alcohol? iodine? formaldehyde?), which made it in no way appetizing. Despite the lovely green garnish and the lemon slice, I just couldn’t get past the smell.

I didn’t take a picture of the whole meal (I was way too hungry), but I took a picture of dessert afterwards:

Chocolate ice cream! But that’s not even the best part. Just look at that gorgeous spoon!! I made this picture bigger to try and showcase the spoon, although my photography skills are doing a terrible job of it. The spoon was amazing! It was wonderfully shallow (almost like the Cold Stone scoops) with a nice thick handle for grasping, the perfect contrast to those inconveniently deep Wendy’s spoons that you feel like you lose your lips in every time you try and take a bite of your frosty (I can never get all the ice cream out of them the first time). But this spoon was simply divine: easy to scoop, easy to slurp. I have decided that this is the perfect ice cream spoon. I hope to have some just like it one day.

And look, breakfast the next morning had two of the spoons!

And the smaller one was an ideal yogurt spoon! Absolutely perfect. I mean, If I were to sit in a windowsill in Greece to eat my blueberry yogurt, gazing out on the cerulean ocean as the salty breeze wafted my hair, I would be using this spoon. And I’m sure it would make a great commercial. I must have a set of these spoons. I wonder if Singapore Airlines will give me a few if I ask on the flight home…and maybe the recipe for those mushrooms, because they were the best part of the meal (besides the spoons).

One final thought, called to the surface by the previous paragraph: I am very confused about blueberries. I mean, I can’t decide how I feel about them. First of all, their insides are green, not blue, and that just seem deceptive to me. Second of all, I love a ripe, juicy blueberry, but whenever I reach into a carton, my fingers hesitate and I second guess myself because I know, I just know, I’m going to get a hard, shriveled, sour one. Or one that I think will be perfect and juicy will be sour. Or the last one that I eat will be sour, and I’ll need to get another handful. I’ve never had a handful of only delicious blueberries; there has always been a dud. Thirdly, although most fresh blueberries are delicious (despite their anxiety-inducing nature), blueberries are an ingredient in many baked foods (such as muffins and bagels). And whenever somebody offers me a warm blueberry muffin or bagel, I imagine a plate stacked with a quivering pile of blueberries that has just been microwaved (meaning that some are most definitely exploded) and my appetite crawls meekly back into its cave.