It’s come to this: carry-on steak

LONG before airlines began cutting back on service -- long before the advent of JetBlue Airways and other no-frills outfits that don’t even serve meals -- I began to implement one of my Guiding Principles of Life: Whenever possible, turn a negative into a positive, convert a burden into a pleasure.

Being crammed into a flying sardine can with 100 strangers for several hours while being forced to breathe foul, recirculated air is not my idea of a good time. I’m even less enchanted by the idea of eating airline food; every trayful reminds me of the line Jackie Gleason always used on television when he came upon Art Carney eating lunch: “What’s that slop you’re eating? It looks like an old toupee floating down the gutter.”

So I try to make every long flight a dining adventure, especially now that every aspect of air travel has become even more onerous.

My wife and son know that when we’re returning from a vacation abroad, we can’t book an early-morning flight because I need that time to buy provisions for the long trip home -- two multi-course meals’ worth at least.

“Eating my way across the Atlantic,” I call it, and on our last such flight, I bought wild game pate, a whole roast chicken, a dozen slices each of roast beef, roast pork, ham and turkey, two baguettes, some asparagus vinaigrette, three kinds of cheese, several pieces of fruit, three kinds of dessert and a tin of chocolates.

I always buy enough food to share with on-board neighbors -- and with flight attendants -- and everyone has always seemed most appreciative. In fact, the flight attendants often whisper conspiratorially, “Yeah, we bring our own food too.”

Now there are more reasons than ever to do so. Strapped for cash since Sept. 11, many airlines have cut back on meal service. Major U.S. carriers now spend only a little more than $4 per passenger per meal in coach on domestic flights, a drop of almost 10% since 2001.

While several airlines have eliminated meal service on some flights, a few others are working with top airline caterers to create meals they could sell on board, with customers paying for them at the time of service, as they now do for drinks.

Northwest and America West airlines are experimenting with in-flight meal sales, and Delta has conducted a similar experiment for its about-to-be-launched subsidiary, Song air service. (First thought: Airlines expect you to pay for the food they serve? What next -- charging a fee when they lose your luggage?)

Northwest began its experiment last month on 12 of the airline’s 1,500 daily flights. Last week, the airline added nine more flights and extended the trial period “indefinitely.” Kurt Ebenhoch, a spokesman for Northwest, says the meals are served only in coach and only when meals would not normally be offered -- on flights between Detroit and Las Vegas, Detroit and Phoenix, Minneapolis and New York, and Minneapolis and Orlando. Several flights from the Memphis hub may soon be added to the test.

For morning flights, the test breakfasts feature “thick and chewy cinnamon streusel twists” and fresh fruit. Cost: $7. Lunch and dinner flights offer -- for $10 -- a turkey club sandwich, a salad of artichoke hearts, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese, a pear and chocolate chip cookies.

After Northwest concludes the experiment, its executives will decide whether to make In-Flight Cafe a permanent feature.

America West has been conducting a similar experiment, first with “Buy on Board” breakfasts, snacks, lunches and dinners at $5 each on selected flights, then with $10 dinners on several longer flights, most of which had discontinued food service after Sept. 11. (One $10 dinner featured cold beef tenderloin, pasta salad, fresh marinated vegetables, cheese and crackers, fresh strawberries, apple cobbler and a chocolate mint.)

Now, having received feedback from 6,500 passengers, America West is testing a version of its initial snack box but with a hot sandwich added -- at a price of $5 -- on four flights a day, two each from Phoenix to Raleigh/Durham, N.C., and from Phoenix to Tampa, Fla.

“We’ll evaluate the economics ... and the customer response and decide the first week in March whether to go ahead with this,” says Joette Schmidt, a vice president at America West.

Delta tested sales of snacks, salads and sandwiches for six days early this month on 16 flights between New York and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in preparation for its scheduled April 15 launch of Song, a subsidiary that will offer low-fare flights between Florida and Boston, New York and Washington, D.C.

Snacks were $2 each, lunch and dinner salads and sandwiches were $7 each. Those items will be offered on Song, and if the trial is successful, Delta will consider offering a similar service on its own flights.

American Airlines is in preliminary discussions about selling simple, packaged meals at the gate for some of its flights, as JetBlue does.

Ready for takeoff

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, selling prepackaged meals to airline travelers shows signs of becoming a cottage industry. At least two hotel restaurants and one independent operator already offer such meals.

The Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel has an in-flight “Pen-Air” menu consisting of three breakfast items, eight lunch or dinner entrees and four desserts. The entrees range from $8 for baby vegetables and an avocado blue cheese dip to $18 for a cold New York steak sandwich with grilled portabello mushrooms and a tomato relish.

Although these boxed meals were initially created for hotel guests, they’re available to anyone who calls two hours in advance. Bill Bracken, chef at the hotel’s Belvedere restaurant, says he’ll even prepare and package items from the Belvedere menu for airport-bound travelers.

Jer-ne restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey, offers a choice of six bento boxes-to-go at $20 each. There’s a Japanese breakfast box, a vegetarian, a sandwich, a fish, an Asian and a “chef’s choice” box that changes daily. These were also created to serve the hotel’s airport-bound guests but are available to anyone who wants to stop by the hotel on the way to the airport. The Jer-ne kitchen will also prepare an airplane meal made with dishes from its regular menu.

SkyMeals, based in Santa Monica, has an entire airborne menu: five appetizers, 10 salads, six sandwiches, five main courses, a dozen side dishes, seven desserts, three brunch choices. Your elegantly packaged order will be delivered to your home or office, or if you want to stop by the company’s Lincoln Boulevard kitchen in Venice, en route to the airport, it will be brought to your car.

SkyMeals isn’t cheap, despite price reductions of 12% to 15% since opening last summer.

A dinner beginning with a grilled portabello mushroom stuffed with polenta and pine nuts ($11.95), followed by chilled, poached salmon with a cucumber/dill salad and vegetable orzo ($27.75) and a creme brulee ($5.25), costs $48.66. The last time I checked, you could fly to Vegas for half that.

Richard Katz, co-founder and co-proprietor of SkyMeals, acknowledges that his service isn’t for everyone. “We’re not aiming,” he says, “for people who would be satisfied to bring a Big Mac and fries on the plane.”

Pack it yourself

Having sampled the Peninsula, Jer-ne and SkyMeals offerings, I can confidently tell you: (1) They’re all substantially better than you’re likely to be served on any airplane, but (2) If you’re an inveterate forager like I am, and you enjoy the adventure of shopping for food and selecting exactly what you want, you’ll be happier -- and you’ll eat better -- if you do just that.

Airlines limit carry-ons and prohibit metal flatware, so I can neither take as much food as I once did nor take food that requires a sharp knife or strong fork.

Not wanting to make a mess of my lap, my seat and my traveling companions, I make one other sacrifice: I try to avoid food with runny sauces.

But I always carry a travel pack of moist, paper towelettes, and with forethought, it’s still not difficult to turn a transcontinental or transatlantic flight into a movable feast.

I have different routines for flights at different times of the day.

For a morning flight, I buy good smoked salmon -- preferably Scottish or Norwegian -- put it between small ice packs and take it with bagels, cream cheese and a couple of tangerines. My sole concession to current security regulations: I cut the bagel in half and put the cream cheese on it before I leave home.

For a lunch or dinner flight, I might buy or make a submarine sandwich: a thick sandwich, with sliced turkey, roast beef and several kinds of imported ham, salami and cheese on a good French roll. Or I might broil some chicken thighs or buy roast chicken. Or I might take a sandwich and chicken. I’ll also take zip-lock bags with baby carrots, cherry tomatoes and dill pickles and, usually, cookies or brownies, which are less likely to be crushed than a more elaborate pastry. I also take two or three pieces of fresh fruit and several cheeses.

For longer flights, I add more courses: Pate is easy to deal with on a plane. So are cucumber and asparagus spears. And prosciutto and melon.

When I’m visiting other cities -- New York, Paris, London, Rome -- I make sure to include in my early sightseeing or business rounds a search for the best spots to buy my return-flight provisions on getaway day.

There is no better way to end a vacation in France, for example, than getting up early on the morning of departure and visiting various charcuteries, boulangeries, patisseries and open-air markets.

The shopping and the eating extend the vacation and enable me to carry with me the sights and tastes and smells and memories of the entire trip. Of course, the wine I carry (and drink!) on the plane also helps extend and intensify that sense of sybaritic self-indulgence. But that’s another column.

David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com.

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Made to fly

SkyMeals

What we got: Grilled portabello mushroom stuffed with polenta and pine nuts; cold, poached salmon filet with cucumber/dill salad and vegetable orzo; rolls; creme brulee; cookies; chocolates. Infinitely better than the meals most airlines pass off as food, and the order comes with an ice pack and a flower.

Price: $48.66

Portability: Individual plastic containers inside a sturdy, insulated cardboard box, inside a large shopping bag. Attractive but heavy and bulky. Good luck if you try to take it, a roll-on and a laptop or purse on board.

How to order: Call (800) 296-8180 by 5 p.m. the day before departure for next-morning delivery. Same-day service generally available with six hours’ notice. Free delivery anywhere in L.A.

Jer-ne at the Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey

What we got: Fruit salad; sliced beef short ribs; milk chocolate mousse tarte.

Price: $15.21 (The standard price for these bento box lunches is $20; no one could explain why we were charged less.)

Portability: Compartmentalized, red plastic tray with clear plastic top. The smallest, most portable of those we tried, but the least tasty.

How to order: Call (310) 823-1700 and ask for Jer-ne restaurant. Order at least 30 minutes in advance. Pick up in the restaurant at the hotel, 4375 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey.

Peninsula Beverly Hills

What we got: Thick slices of cold, roasted prime New York steak; grilled portabello mushrooms; a chocolate mousse cake that any restaurant would be proud to serve. And anyone who would prefer a Big Mac to this steak sandwich should strap his seat belt around his mouth before boarding.

Price: $30.92

Portability: Steak, bread and dessert in separate plastic containers, all packaged in two slim cardboard boxes with plastic handles. But if you carry them by the handles, all the food slides to the bottom. Chocolate pudding, anyone?

How to order: Call (310) 551-2888, and ask for room service. For early-morning departures, call by 8 the night before; otherwise, two hours in advance. Pick up at the hotel, 9882 Little Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills.

-- David Shaw