Another glam business trip to Los Angeles on Tuesday: barely made the 9.00 a.m. Southwest flight after oversleeping and needing to stop for gas (I was sick Sunday and Monday with a fever, headache, and cough). We were about 20 minutes into the hour-long flight when somebody about ten rows back let out a loud yell. Everybody turned to look, but we couldn't see much except the flight attendant running over. Nothing or a few minutes, then another shout followed by, "I invented crack!" Oh, really? There's a celebrity on this flight! Another few minutes before he declared "I can do anything!" followed by a somewhat mournful, "I need to be a dee jaaaaayyyyy..." Oddly enough, the flight attendants didn't seem especially concerned. A little tense, but they went about the service as normal and when the pilot got on the PA he did his usual spiel about the weather in LA, not congregating around the forward bathroom and keeping your seatbelt fastened in case of unexpected turbulence blah blah blah. When we got to LA, everything was totally routine as if nothing odd had transpired at all. We landed, they told us to stay seated 'til we got to the gate, and we all got off. No cops, nothing. I guess because the dude stayed in his seat they really couldn't do anything else. Bizarre, though. I wonder if he did invent crack.

On the flight back to Oakland that evening I was reminded that Southwest gave away beers for free on Tuesday in honor of St. Patrick's Day when the woman next to me got a free Heineken. Nevertheless I opted for a white wine with one of my frequent flier coupons. Never drink beer on a plane; the bubbles and altitude make for a bad abdominal situation and unhappy seatmates.

Last night I finally made a recipe from Rachael Ray that I've had on the short list for a while now, Mac-n-Smoked Gouda with Cauliflower. Though very tasty, it ended up being kind of a pain in the neck to make and I ended up with easily 12 servings of mac & cheese. The part where you thicken the sauce of milk, broth, roux and onions said nothing about how often to stir, which made me nervous so I stirred it pretty constantly for about ten minutes before adding the cheese. It turned out fine, but the entire recipe took an hour, not 30 minutes or less, and I'll be eating it for some time to come.