For those of you who aren't up to date on this saga, in December United Airlines introduced a cookbook based on the food that they serve in Polaris. Yes, a US airline introduced a cookbook about food, and yes, apparently the irony is lost on United. I've never cooked before in my life (like, actually,…
Continue reading: My Four Course Polaris Cooking Experience!
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Hats off to you for actually buying the book and following through on it. Let's be honest, though; this book was never more than a thinly veiled marketing gimmick and (arguably terrible?) advertisement for their "celebrity" chefs. As you mentioned, nothing in the book remotely compares to what's actually served on-board, either in preparation method, ingredients sourcing, or in taste. Glad you had a good time, though, so the rest of us don't have to.
So Ben,
If you saw one of the items in the book, especially one you made for this dinner party, on the inflight menu in Polaris Business on an actual flight (for the sake of argument SNN-EWR), would you actually order it, and do you think it would taste as good as on the ground, in Tiffany's house ?
Sorry Ben - maybe it's the plating, but it looks a notch or two below the Polaris chicken soup and just ahead of lobster roll.
Looks like multiple courses of vomit from different people.
@AdamR - Totally agree - a gimmick, (mis) management and/or marketing must be really struggling to think of something -at the end of the day it is just a list of things that they don't serve in United Polaris, rather than things that they actually do serve - in that regard it may make them look bad, even,
You should bring this book with you on your next Polaris flight and use it as a menu and see what they actually serve onboard.
That actually looks - pretty nicely done. Good job for a first timer! I'm a reasonably competent cook (as in, not much creativity but can follow a recipe pretty well), but I don't think I'd have the patience to pull that entire meal off.
im glad that you learned from this to appreciate more, the food being served to you which is not always perfect and you will probably have more understanding with the hard working people that work to prepare all the fancy stuff. takes a man to admit that lucky !!
I guess I could see why you wanted to follow the cookbook *exactly,* but for most of us that cook regularly, we'll substitute or simplify as needed. For example, if this were summer, then yeah, I'd probably shuck the corn since it would be would be in top form. But in January? In all likelihood, frozen would have been just as good--maybe even better. In fact, I'm surprised you could find ears of corn in the store this time of year.
@ No Name -- We all pitched in across the two days of cooking (I only have so many dishes), but the bulk of the credit goes to my long-suffering husband who spent about six hours reconstructing the kitchen on Saturday morning.
@ Michael -- That was actually the biggest takeaway for me. No one who cooks regularly cooks like this. We'd buy the beets pre-pickled, quick-rice, etc. It was definitely a departure from my normal kitchen routine.
I'm impressed. Everything looked beautiful, especially the octopus, but don't tell anyone because they will raise the price. Congratulations on completing such a difficult and special endeavour!
Highly recommend watching the Mega Food episode about airplane food on Netflix if you guys haven't watched it yet. Gives you a lot more appreciation for airplane food.
I enjoy cooking and do so from scratch but never to the extent of shucking corn. On the other hand, I purchase whole poultry from farms and the complete fish and clean and cut them myself. It's just a wonderful daily activity for me after a stressful day at work.
Wonderful to see such beautifully prepared dishes.
Look like Tiffany did the most part of cooking.You just put them on the plat.Fortunately you were doing this with (sort of) love.And with love is the key part of cooking.
Ben looks about as horrified as I would be when cooking. He actually pulled it off though. I would have either burned or overcooked everything.
If I ever have a boyfriend, cooking will be his job! 🙂
In my single days my cooking was quite simple, but I did occasionally make myself a Chinese meal with my wok and ingredients purchased locally at an oriental market. The cooking itself was not particularly difficult, but I found that cleanup took 4x longer than actually eating.
Now all my Chinese food is purchased already cooked.