You don’t win friends with salad! You don’t win friends with salad!
February 18th, 2011 |So eating well while traveling is always a challenge, there’s just not that much available to you. We were in Midway, going to catch our plane to Texas, when this little place called Sprigs caught my eye. Several different kinds of salads, and lots of customizable options, with happy, healthy, fresh looking greens and other vegetables – and no one, absolutely no one in line. The lady behind the register looked SO BORED. I swear I saw people actually make a wide arc as they passed the place. And of course right next to it, a McDonald’s, with a line 20 people deep.
I guess the Simpsons were right all along!
So I went to get a salad, and it was wicked tasty. Of course it wasn’t actually THAT healthy; word to the wise, if you end up there, stop her before she puts the dressing on. The Southwest chicken salad said it came with tomatoes, sweet corn salsa, grilled chicken, monterrey jack cheese, and “chipotle”. Apparently “chipotle” was shorthand for “a giant ladle-ful of chipotle-flavored mayonnaise”, and she swiped it in there so fast I didn’t have time to object. So even getting a healthy salad at the airport isn’t as easy as all that. Still, I bet it was healthier than anything I could have gotten at McDonald’s, and even though it didn’t have many customers, I’m encouraged that it’s there at all.
I’m sometimes embarrassed by the amount of food that I’ve brought with me from home to avoid/not by tempted by airport food. Trail mix, a whole wheat pancake sandwich (jelly and almond butter), apples, always hot herbal tea bags for in-flight (helps with not drying out on longer flights), even a spinach fritatta once. I once brought hard boiled eggs, and I thought the dude sitting next to me would punch me…not without reason, as they do smell, well, eggy. At least it wasn’t a tuna sandwich.
Even so, I like being in control of my food that way.
Good to know about Sprigs, cause we’re getting one not far from where I work in the Loop (in an old SaladSpinners location, no less).
Megan: I swear, every time we take a trip I promise myself I’m going to pack healthy little lunches for the plane and I always run out of time. Your carry-on foods sound awesome though!! I will have to make a more concerted effort the next time I get on an airplane!
I’ve been to that Sprigs when I used to fly from Brookhaven National Labs out to a contracting gig in Colorado! It’s awesome! You’re right though, there’s never a line. If someone started one of those in an Airstream in Austin, they’d make a mint.