Is Air Canada Bulkhead Seat worth an $80 upgrade

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I took a flight from Ottawa to Vancouver. I could see from the seating map that the flight was fully booked. I usually pay to book a window seat and then try and get a seat with no one beside me at the last minute it works 50% of the time and the planes that I have been on leaving from Ottawa are not usually full. This time was different the airport was busier than I have ever seen it. I could tell from the seating map the plane was full. It cost $40 to book a window seat. I saw a last minute opening for a bulkhead window seat and decided to try it. It cost $80 to upgrade to the bulkhead seat but the $40 I already paid would get credited. I liked the idea of having a wall in front of me on such a packed flight.  I have free check in luggage with my credit card so I usually only take a backpack to leave under my seat on the plane. If I was in the back of the plane I wait until the last minute to board. I knew I would have no storage at my seat but this seat comes with early zone 3 board

Vegan hollandaise substitute



 

I only became vegan a year ago and one of my favourite things when I was vegetarian was hollandaise sauce. There are no restaurants near where I live that serve vegan hollandaise and the ones I have tried in the past were not even close to being a regular hollandaise. 

A long time ago I worked in restaurants. One of the restaurants would get hollandaise as a powder. I have not seen any commercial vegan hollandaise sauce in stores near me. I went in search of an accidentally vegan hollandaise powder but I couldn’t find any. 

In another restaurant I worked at we made the hollandaise from scratch and I remember the process being similar to making mayonnaise except using butter and whisking over heat. My next option was to attempt to make a homemade version. I didn’t know where to start could I use a vegan mayo as a base? 

I looked up some recipes they had common ingredients mustard, turmeric, black salt, and lemon I had all of these except lemon. There were different variations using nutritional yeast, tofu, vegan cream cheese but when I saw the one that used cashews I thought perfect. I have living tree foods cream cheese it’s garlic and chive flavour but that is okay. 


I got out the ingredients I thought might work. I didn’t have much of the cream cheese or vegan mayo left so I thought I would combine the two. The recipes I saw said to blend hot water with the ingredients. I put too much water in so I went to look for something to thicken it with. I added nutritional  yeast it was still to thin. I found Tofutti sour cream in my fridge and it was perfect. I added everything to the magic bullet and blended.

It tastes okay but was to watery and I felt it was missing something. As I was debating on heating it up to thicken it I realized the whole point of hollandaise is to eat butter. I melted vegan butter in the pan and slowly heated the mixture up while stirring. 

The consistency was good but the flavour still wasn’t right. I am trying to use up my smoked paprika and dried parsley so I added that salt and pepper. The taste was good but a lemon would have helped. 

The taste and texture are good not exactly like a hollandaise but a pretty good substitute. Recipe below let me know if you try it. 

Recipe 

2 TBSP cashew cream cheese 

1 TBSP vegan mayo 

2 TBSP vegan sour cream 

1/4 cup vegan butter 

1 tsp turmeric powder 

1 tsp mustard 

1/2 cup warm water 

I/4 tsp black salt (kala namak)

A few drops hot sauce (optional)

A squeeze of lemon 

Spices -whatever you like 

Salt and pepper 

Blend everything except vegan butter in a blender I used a magic bullet. In a pan over low medium heat melt butter. Add blended mixture while stirring over heat for a few minutes sauce will thicken as it cooks. Once sauce boils take off heat. Let cool to thicken, 

 

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