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If I had been thinking, I probably would have asked my mother-in-law to please pack me a lunch for the flight to Tampa. Elmarie usually has some homemade meatballs in the freezer, and she makes terrific kolaches and the world's best potato salad. But I didn't think of it, and so we left the farm yesterday morning for the airport with about 150 miles of road ahead of us, and not a place between Protivin, Iowa and MSP where you can pick up a decent box lunch - at least not on a Sunday morning.

If we had been leaving from home a little later in the day, I could have called El Meson , 3450 Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis,  for an order of their Arroz con Mariscos, or we might have stopped at Kabobs, not too far from the airport at 7418 Portland Ave. S., Bloomington, or grabbed a sushi combo to go at Lund's. But before noon on Sunday, my only option was to try to find the best carry-on lunch I could in the departure area. The long wait to clear the security checkpoint left me with about 10 minutes to scout out all the options. French Meadow had some decent looking sandwiches and salads, but I wanted something a bit more substantial - a real meal, just like in the old days. So with the clock ticking, I ordered a hot turkey dinner ($16.99) from Ike's, one of the few non-chain options (along with French Meadow) at the airport. This was a standard version of the classic - sliced turkey over toasted bread with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce. The turkey was sliced from a rolled roast, rather than carved off the bird, but it was still real turkey, rather than pressed turkey loaf. Service was great - when I worried about getting to the gate in time, the hostess flagged down a cart and I rode to G22 in style, along with a couple of little old ladies.

Once on the plane, actually eating this meal was the next challenge. I was stuck in row A, wedged between the window and an enormous guy in the middle seat. But I did manage to wrangle my lunch out of the shopping bag and onto the tray table, and break out the plastic silverware, and actually, it was pretty good. Not as good as Elmarie's but a lot better than paying $5 for a Northwest snack box.