Sometime around lunch today, I received this in my inbox from my Grandma Norma, a New-York-to-Florida transplant who recently started using Gmail.  At first I thought it was probably one of those emails I've asked my mom and other family members to please stop sending me, but after a perfunctory visual scan I felt the need to read further.  It felt culturally enriching, in the way that watching natives pierce their lower lips with large wooden disks on the National Geographic channel feels culturally enriching.  By the end, I was alternately cheering and wincing in discomfort, and I've copied it for you below.  I like the part about the cremated rib steaks.  

Thanks for sending this to me, Grandma.  

In the last decade or so, air travel has become more associated with awful food than ever before.  I miss the days of kvetching about airplane food in your most highly-flavored Seinfeld voice, back when there was such a thing as airplane food.  Nowadays, the buying of provisions must occur before you scan your ticket at the gate, lest you spend $9 on a damp sandwich en-route.

The Secret Ingredient? Dead air.

Food Network had literally been plugging its "Iron Chef America: Super Chef Battle" complete with secret guest judge and ingredient of "national importance" (spoiler: Michelle Obama and White House garden veggies) for months when their airwaves in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut went blank. Actually, they didn't go blank. Currently and until further notice, when viewers flip to Food Network or HGTV, they'll see a white screen stamped with network logos and hear a looped message expressing sorrow for this absence of food porn with a steaming side of "take it up with Scripps Networks."