OCTOBER 30, 2008
SANDWICH DUEL, PART 19
Written by Chris Onstad
When last I wrote (a while ago now, since I was out on the road promoting my new book, “The Great Outdoor Fight”), Frank Bruni (chief restaurant critic for the New York Times) was tickling away on an old six-string on my front lawn, and I had edged inside to prepare some lunch for him.
You’re not going to impress Frank Bruni by making a sandwich. The guy has eaten Emeril’s muffuletta, out of Emeril’s hand. The guy has had the big important pastrami thing at Katz’s. He has been to Foxington Whiddle, Sandwich, Northumberland, where the sandwich was invented, and he has had his picture taken in the exact spot, in the ruins, where the Earl of Sandwich took the first bite of the first sandwich. You can’t just “make” Frank a sandwich. So I didn’t.
I set down a clean white plate with a small music-box motor in the center. Frank set the guitar upright in the deep grass and pulled his chair to the table.
“Interesting,” he said, almost too quickly. “They’re doing something like this at Adria’s this season.”
I smiled politely. “No, they’re not,” I thought.
Read more here.
The Lunch Encounter 