Where to Eat in the Airport

I'm back from the trip to Dallas to see the Pats annihilate the Cowboys. The weekend was too much fun. The pre-game atmosphere at Texas Stadium was akin to a festival. The best part of the weekend was, of course, seeing old friends, including my old buddy Pep and my prodigal colleague and pop culture maven Jaime, who was chaperoned by his boy Ben.

As for the game itself, the Patriots are truly awesome. (Ben -- you owe me five bucks!) Going undefeated is a tough task in any context, and given that the Patriots still have a huge game against a Colts team that's probably really sick of hearing about New England, and given that the Steelers and Redskins and other quality teams still loom, I'd say it is truly premature to speculate about an undefeated season. But the Cowboys are a good team, they were playing at home, and the Pats crushed them.

In the meantime, there is not much to say about the Red Sox. The Indians are simply playing significantly better baseball. If they pull this out, they deserve it. The Sox need to get into one game at a time mode, Beckett needs to come up big on Thursday night, and somebody outside of the middle of the lineup needs to come up with a timely hit. Otherwise this season will end up as another serious disappointment.

As I recover from the weekend, deal with a fairly major professional development process here at UT's little desert gem, and polish off the final draft of my Freedom Ride book -- which, by the way, has been accepted for publication by a university press, (details forthcoming), I would like to enlist the good folks at The Washington Post travel section to help us solve one of those age-old dilemmas: Where to eat at the airport? Usually the options range from the unappetizing fast food fare to the banality of another Chili's. Here are the best, and sometimes legitimately great, options in eighteen airports in US cities. Print and save, or simply memorize, if you travel a lot. Bon appetit!