AOPA Pilot Blog: Reporting Points

All winter my wife and I watch what we eat, but all that resolve and co-discipline flies out the window during my first exposure to airshow food. Every year this takes place in Lakeland, Florida, at Sun ‘n Fun, the first big airshow of the year. There are just some foods that mark the beginning of the airshow year. This year I kicked off the show with an Italian sausage sandwich smothered in grilled onions and peppers. Not bad.

There’s not enough time to sample everything. The following samples of common airshow nosh are offered within 100 yards of AOPA’s big yellow tent: 1/2-pound hamburgers with freedom–not french–fries, Bratwrust, hot dogs, pizza, and corn dogs. This is predictable airshow food. But at Sun ‘n Fun the menu expands into regional favorites such as grouper sandwiches (which I chose today), crab rolls, Cajun jambalaya, smoked turkey legs, shish kebab (K-Bob) on a pita, and a local favorite–pork butt on a stick. It’s all good. Visitors who tend to favor healthier dishes can find a fresh tomato salad at the London broil-Italian sausage stand, a grilled chicken salad, a toasted garlic bread bowl, and a turkey bacon wrap.

The lemonade is fresh squeezed, cold and refreshing, especially today as the temperature climbed to 85 degrees F. Corn on the cob is an especially good deal at $2 an ear. I just had a coffee mochachino and it was great. I do miss the funnel cakes, which are a weakness of mine. For some reason they disappeared a couple of years ago. But there’s a soft ice cream vendor just outside the tent–I have a chocolate-vanilla cone dipped in caramel in my sights. I just have to wait for an hour or two for the grouper sandwich to digest a little.

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Sun 'n Fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.