Where did the summer go? Ours went to Asheville, Greece, the Zuni Mountains, Martha’s Vineyard. A wonderful, wanderful couple months. While we didn’t stay home much, the computer did – a spectacular formula for vacationing, not so much for the Lunch Encounter. Neglected. Sad. I feel bad about it.
The formica carries a coating of dust, the fryer is cold and the walk-in bare. Time to get those purveyors on the horn, fire up the grill and yank the chain on the OPEN sign. Let’s sand wich it, shall we.
A sandwich is a collaboration, of course, and we all know the beauty of sums and parts. Four is the magic number – bacon, lettuce, tomato, bread. Begin at the beginning – bread, use a loving touch, many hands and all that.
We had many hands and the eating was splendid over the long (but not long enough) weekend of July 4th. Warmed up with fried chicken, potato salad and cole slaw – not to mention the hours and days of foraging for the proper ingredients (thank you, Extra-Steps Kay, for the whipcracking), and swung into BLTmania with absolute ease.
Begin at the beginning. The vehicle. The bread. The boys knew what to do, I’ll betcha.
All you need is bread…provided it’s been toasted and smeared, while warm, with mayonnaise. Mayonnaise haters will not be tolerated. So good when it melts into the toast.
This is how it’s done. Everyone knows.
Not my idea, but the foraging was epic. An island safari in search of THE bread, THE mayonnaise, THE tomatoes, THE bacon. Thank god I did not burn the bacon as I would have been dropped at the ferry pronto.
The thing is, and any true maniac can tell you, once you are nuts for something, anything, you’ll down it with gusto, superlative or not. A BLT…well…puffy white bread, sweet salad dressing, ho hum tomatoes, greasy-ass bacon? Even at it’s worst it’s still the best.
The same can be said for you-know-who. Yeah, that’s right, anybody I love. Even at their worst, they are the best. Tell you what, at my worst I am the worst. Praying to Demeter, goddess of bread, that I compensate with sandwiches.
It was a fab four days over the fab Fourth. It’s good to know, now and again, that I too can cook. Thank you, Barbara, Bruce, Jeff, Kay and dogs, dogs, dogs for feeding my heart and my mania. Boom, boom, boom.
The Lunch Encounter 
