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.
Without sunlight there would be no visualization. Put that in your pan and fry it. Thank you, Mr. Glaser. Without you our visualization would be less luscious.
Thanks to the fearless playfulness of the first human to make bread. And to you, Blexbolex, for a hotpop trip to the bakery and butcher for our sandwich fixins, and the genuine confidence of Je Sais Cuisinier. Yes, yes, I do know how to cook.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Blexbolex, CCAD, Je Sais Cuisinier, Milton Glaser, The Art of Illustration
I’ve never had a sandwich sleep.
I hope one day to do that.
Pickle, bread, tomato sheets.
I think I’d want to chew that.
Ah, yes, I wrote the “Purple Cow”.
I’m sorry now, I wrote it;
But I can tell you anyhow
I’ll kill you if you quote it!
Gelett Burgess
Posted in Uncategorized
Northern Virginia, kind of a non-place with no actual towns, just areas, is a dynamite place to eat. To eat anything. Except maybe soup dumplings. I have not seen them around here. Arepas, something delicious I have only found in NYC to date, are here, in Falls Church, just a skip of a drive from DC, and Falls Church is a town, sorta.
La Caraqueña is in a grievous little motel and I like that. Snugged in with white curlicue iron work. Inside, corn flour walls, ultramarine booths and a waiter with a head of hair so gorgeously black and sleek it could have been made of petroleum.
When was the last time you saw arepas on a menu? Right. Me neither.
Goes down nicely with beer. The beers here are not your typical beers.
Cristal (Peru)
Suprema (El Salvador)
Palma Louca (Brasil)
Xingu Black Beer (Brasil)
See?
Briskly sautéed sirloin slivers under a runny-yolked fried egg, tomato and caramelized onions.
Quick! Name three things that are not improved by a fried egg. Thought so, I can’t do it either.
Chicken salad with lots of avocado and a cloud of shredded cheese.
Keith chose fried not grilled. Ahhh Repahhhhh was it good. Slippery little devil too. Greased lightening. NOW I get it, why a person might dream of an arepa.
Packing up one bowl, one spoon, a bit of teensy toast and hotfootin’ it to a tiny house.
When you live in a tiny house 83% of all consumables can be artificial, due to energy conserved. You need not move much, nor eat much – all needs are within arm’s reach and eye’s view.
I wasn’t aware that it had gone away...
The return of the Super-Colossal Economy-Size Sandwich
We humans love giganticness. My theory is, the bigger the sandwich the tinier we feel, the tinier we feel the freer we become. Colossally free.
Posted in NY, NYC, Sandwich Joints, Sandwiches, Uncategorized
Tagged Grub Street, Super Colossal
What is art? I BEG you. Tell me. Put the question to rest and we can move on to world peace.
Funny Food Art
According to my criteria, if the work’s descriptors include “super” and/or “cute” art is probably ruled out.
Thirteen Super Cute Sandwich Monsters
Posted in Uncategorized
Does this sandwich make you feel safe? It does me.
Scott Modrynski aka Scottie Mo
A new email! A new email! A new email!
Is it something good? I’m sure it’s something good! It’s going to make me happy!
Oh boy, a new email!
That’s me when the pavlovian ~bing~ of an email arrives. And, you know, sometimes it is something good. Maybe even often. This arrived today:
Hello Lisa
I’m writing to let you know that Lunch Encounter made it onto CulinaryPrograms.net’s recently completed list of 100 Magnificent Sites for Chefs. Congratulations!
We built this list for the next generation of chefs who will soon be entering culinary programs and will need to stay up to date on the latest trends in cuisine, and know how to leverage the internet and other forms of media to get their work noticed. We think your site is a great example of how culinary professionals can use the web to their advantage.
Congratulations again, and please don’t hesitate to email me with questions or comments.
Chelsea Barber
Yes, I believe that “gullible” is painted on the ceiling and I like it like that. We may as well believe the best until it is disproven. Perhaps we will be lucky enough to go to our grave in the glow of delusion.
I checked the website and am in very good company. The blog list is excellent. Wow, there are a lot of blogs out there (and in here, in my computer). If anyone looks at mine ever, I think that is a victory against the odds.
So now I have the Magnificent Chef Site badge at the Lunch Encounter and I’m happy for the endorsement. Thank you CulinaryPrograms.net! To all of you thinking food24/7 looks like a bright future, lord have mercy there are so many more choices and opportunities for you then there were when I hit the CIA in 1977. It’s a much bigger, much bolder, much brighter world. Grab hold and enjoy the centrifugal force!
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