Turkey burger and a beer

S. could not believe I was old enough to drink a Miller Lite. She kept looking at me and saying Really? Really? while she took lunch orders from us in the dining car. I kept threatening to pull out my I.D. to prove I was actually 33, but she was all, No, no. I believe you even though she really didn’t and we both knew it. So I got my Miller Lite, which I drank with a turkey burger while getting to know my companions, chosen for me by the luck of the train and the timing (everybody, and I mean everybody, sits at a table for four). N. and C. (hamburger; roast beef lunch special) are taking Amtrak to L.A. where they’ll pick up a car and drive to the middle of the desert for Burning Man. D. (hamburger) commutes between New Orleans, where she lived before Katrina, and Atlanta, where she lives now, styling hair for clients in both cities. The view was primarily of kudzu. Lots and lots of kudzu, for hours, until we hit Lake Ponchartrain, divine.

 

Brie, avocado, and sprout sandwich with chips and yellow watermelon

Not sure what to think about SEPTA–it certainly got me where I wanted to go for less than I expected, but no ticket machines? No toilets? No trashcans? The whole thing felt a little mass-transit-amateur, prompting me to save my sandwich and accoutrements for the real thing: the New Jersey Transit connection at Trenton. I was so hungry by then that I managed to swallow my copy-cat cafe order (I had what A. was having) before we even hit Hamilton. Then I alternated chips and the watermelon J. packed for me, cut into slightly larger chunks than she gave J., perhaps because I’m about eight times bigger than he is. Having exhausted my ability to think, I settled into the rousing finish of The Thoroughbred, a Sweet Dreams pre-teen romance I scored for 48 cents on my way to the train last week. After a passionate summer romance, Maura and Kevin have turned enemies… right before the big end-of-season horse show. Who will win the open jumping event, and will they jump back into each other’s hearts? Riveting stuff as the wheels slipped beneath us in the rain, heading north.

 

Vegetarian garden wrap

J. warned me before Dad and I walked over there that the sandwich place had a “stoner service ethic,” and it was true. People kept wandering slowly over to the counter and saying brightly, We’ll be right with you! until finally I answered back, Really?! I was glad I waited, though, since the train station was a wasteland and  Amtrak food (save for the perennially delightful cheese and cracker plate, so good you can’t count on its being in stock) is a nightmare. I ate my well-planned sandwich sitting in the station, settling into a 45 minute delay. I love riding the train–it’s up there with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and morning coffee on my list of reasons to wake up every day–but consummation invariably requires an extended wait in the station. So I pondered that, spinning out and extending a metaphor, staring around at my fellow passengers and the tracks out the window, enjoying the use of both hummus and cream cheese, an unexpected delight, and put the rest in my bag for a snack later on, though it didn’t end up lasting even until Hartford. I was hungry.

 

Greek veggie baguette with orzo salad and chocolate square, redux

T. was pretty much playing at flight attendant, and I loved his fine-dining-drag act–he dropped my meal at my seat with an over-the-top flourish, all your lunch, madame. I ate the sandwich with gusto, marveling a second time at the decision by my inflight chefs to use a slice of feta on the veggie baguette. I have crumbled a lot of feta over a lot of salads in my time, and just would never think to use a slice of it on a baguette. I ate and drank while watching the first of several inflight episodes of Law & Order: SVU, which helpfully reminded me several times over that teenage hooking does not pay. (It may feel like it’s paying when you’re rolling in Louis Vuitton handbags and older men who are rich dentists, but in the end? Does not pay.) I knew better from my flight out than to save my chocolate square for last. It’s actually pretty waxy, despite the fancy paper wrapping.

 

Greek veggie baguette with noodle salad and a chocolate square

So there’s this auto touch screen like you see at the ATM machine, right, and you just choose what you want, including drinks, and the surly nightclub staff-cum-flight attendants bring it right to your seat! Whenever you want it! I chose the Greek Veggie baguette and accompaniments around “noon” when we were roughly over Oklahoma, trying to preserve some semblance of lunch routine. (Which means I pretty much had a turkey sandwich plus chips for breakfast, but who’s counting?) I ate it in about six seconds while watching a re-run of America’s Best Dance Crew on the same touch screen, which also turns into a radio station and an in-flight chat room. ABDC was amazing–I had many feelings watching what those bodies could do. I can’t believe Shane Sparks is a judge, though. I hate his stuff on SYTYCD.

 

Cheese, two rolls, and an apple

After coping with an amateur commuter crowd–Grand Central on a Sunday is a little like showing up on race day dressed in performance clothing and finding the velodrome filled with tricyclists–I decided I deserved a lunch of a hunk of fine cheese, a couple of rolls, and an apple, what I imagine must make the lunch boxes of train riders in the South of France. I asked the woman behind the counter at Murray’s what would make a good semi-soft cheese for a ride to Tarrytown, and she suggested this $28 a pound goat cheese produced by animals that “eat in the grass of a chestnut orchard.” Why not? I chomped away as the train made that turn in the Bronx to run just by the Hudson and the river opened up and went on and on, like heaven must be, a train that runs along the river forever. I also talked to K. on the phone. I’d sure been missing her.

 

Mini sub sandwich and chips

I was feeling inexplicably sadsack there in seat 3D on Midwest Airlines flight 15 nonstop service from Milwaukee to New York’s LaGuardia airport. So I put the kd lang cover of this sadsack Neil Young song on repeat and cried a little into my six dollar mini Italian sub and side of potato chips. I also ate my two fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, but without the pleasure that attended them on the flight out. My seat companion had exactly what I did for lunch, right down to the half-filled cups of flat airplane water.