Category Archives: Uncategorized

One degree of separation. F not C, which is super close. Debbie Wahl, stylist and friend, found it, Suzanne Sparkman Springer, (or is it Springman Sparker) stylist and friend who also assists, (thank heaven), carried it. I read it and am now posting. Thank you Debbie and Suzanne, for remembering that I am sandwich-focused.

Debbie must have flown somewhere (probably for work. no, I am not jealous. ha ha ha.) cause this is from Spirit Magazine, an airline rag.

The Compleat Sandwich

On my Home-Away-From-Home-at-Home, The Bottle Rockets message board, HaldenSpoonwood posted:

This is not about a Slinger, per se, but I had this yesterday, and it was practically Slingerian in it’s monstrousness:

It’s a Mojomatics Legendary Cheez Dog. Let me see if I can remember the 14 ingredents:

1. Bun
2. Mayo on the bun
3. two slices of American Cheeze
4. Footlong dog, grilled.
5. onions
6. Two slices of bacon
7. Parmesan cheese
8. shredded cheddar cheese
9. hot sauce
10. Chili
11. Cheeze Whiz
12.
13. sour cream
14. Crumbled Corn chips on top

I’m missing something. Anyway, it was damn good.

Then Decent e wrote:

I don’t know, I think they could’ve fit at least one more hot dog into that bun.
Where did you get that thing? Someplace in Chicago? Glad you survived to tell the tale.

Halden wrote:

This was my friend Mojo’s invention. It was consumed in Chicago, at the American Legion FDR Post 923 (Booster Fest!), which was a one-time event, with bands, etc…So it’s not often available

It’s the big can that counts. Just what the heck IS nacho cheese? Gonna do some online sleuthing right now. The cheese will embalm your chips. The balm will eese your lips.

The Mitsitam Cookbook
The National Museum of the American Indian has a destination restaurant, Mitsitam, and I had the privilege of doing the styling for the Mitsitam Cookbook, shot last summer by Renee Comet. It was my favorite project for 2009 and now I am thrilled to have a copy in my hands.

The Urbanite talks about traditional food and the Mitsitam Cookbook. Same forum, different topic: FRY BREAD!

Slap a little thin sliced roasted venison between two salted fry bread saucers. Mmm. That’ll carry you through the day and into tomorrow.

It’s here! I got my advance copy. Gorgeous!

Melvyn’s Restaurant and Lounge

My date said, “Is this Jose Feliciano singing Light My Fire?!”

French Onion Soup, Vichyssoise, Monte Cristo Sandwich, Oysters Rockefeller! Oh, those were the days.

The stuff of fantasies. Best in our imaginations, free of cracks and crevasses. Our waitress had every intention of dying young and staying pretty, no matter how many miles she clocked in Melvyn’s lounge.

Turn Parchment Paper into a Toaster Bag for Mess-Free Toasted Sandwiches

Says the headline. I think this is truly clever. Terrified that I will feel compelled to line our freezer shelves with premade toaster sandwiches, all wrapped neatly in parchment. Hmm, that gets me thinking. Would anything work, anything not too wet? Say, pancakes? Fettucine carbonara?

If you want your toaster to do double duty warming up sandwiches, bagel spread, and more, these crafty DIY toaster bags made from baking parchment paper are just the ticket to a mess-free and multi-functional toaster.

Culinary tips and tricks blog The Kitchn highlighted Toastabag, a product designed to help you make sandwich melts and heat up things in your toaster without making a mess of the inside. Thrifty reader Jess wrote in with a more economical DIY solution:

I enjoyed your post about Toastabags. I was reluctant to run out and buy them without knowing if I’d really use them. Then it occurred to me that I could use parchment paper the same way as a Toastabag. I could rip off a piece and fold it into a pocket. So, I tried it with a slice of leftover pizza and it worked like a charm!

This is a hack best suited for wide-mouth toasters like bagel toasters. At minimum it allows you to try out whether or not commercial “toaster bags” would be a worthwhile investment before actually purchasing one. If it works well enough for you, you can skip the commercial models and fold your own at home.

You can buy fancy packaged Toastabags, although I am reluctant to peel cabbage for something associated with a word that ends in a, Toasta. That hanging question, Toast a what?, pops a hole in the thrill-of-purchase bubble for me.

At any rate, I do think this idea is clever and we are going to try it. In the picture, the bread browns through the bag. Is that possible? Must check with Shirley Corriher on this. Or maybe the folks at Reynolds who engineered the turkey roasting bag.

Comp drawn by Claudia Barac-Roth

When we reach the destination, I breathe more lightly, but who’s to say I may not breathe with ease along the way?

I saw mentioned with admiration in an obit for a very old woman in Northern Minnesota, a Swedish-American wife for many, many years, that on the day of her death, all of her husband’s shirts were meticulously pressed. A friend, a Minnesotan and Swedish-American herself – next generation, thankfully – remarked, “On the day I die, I hope none of my husband’s shirts are pressed.”

Where I grew up, Wisconsin, another state filled with Scandinavian-Americans who rate one’s worth on outward appearances, the orderliness of a woman’s clothing on the line determined her merit as a citizen. Nowadays, my midwestern life long behind me and living in an era where “house” and “work” find their way into sentences only when they accompany the word “help”, I hang my laundry inside. To be accurate, accuracy being another virtue in Midwestern communities, “toss”, “dangle” or “fling” would be words more on the mark than “hang”.

Photo by Michael Pohuski, Art Direction by Claudia Barac-Roth, Styling by Lisa Cherkasky

We do love a pickle around here.

Doug’s fave tuna sandwich:
Tuna sandwiches are one of my all-time easy, healthy and tasty ‘wiches. I like mine spicy, so I add some chopped Hotties…lots of ’em. I munch on some Spears of Influence for extra pickle goodness!Rick’s Picks

The most perfect gift I ever gave was an extra large, red, plastic dogbowl with non-skid feet. The boyfriend I had then ate a lot, a real lot, and complained that my bowls were too small. The dogbowl, with its non-skid feet, did not run away from him on the enamel-top table either.

It was an everything bowl, and accommodated a full half box of cereal in the morning, a full four sandwiches worth of tuna salad at lunch. He liked his tuna salad spicy, too. Tuna and jarred salsa. Light tuna, not white, like us suburban-raised kids.

The sound of his spoon, scrape, scrape, scraping the bottom of that bowl, chasing milk, was my common early morning soundtrack in those days. I slept again after the muffled closing of the heavy, fireproof apartment door.

Nancy Baron sent me a note about this spot.

You NEED to look at Nancy’s images.

click click click click on the link. do it.

The French dip and the banh mi: The prior was invented in Downtown Los Angeles, regardless of which stories you believe, written either by Cole’s or Philippe’s. The latter has a more fact-checkable history, mirroring that of French Indochina: a mash-up of Vietnamese fillings stuffed into its colonizer’s bread.

Xoia, a new, gleaming white spot in Echo Park that blends Vietnamese cooking with L.A. traditions in their signature pho beef tacos, is now bringing these two Southland sandwich favorites together in their brisket banh mi with pho au jus and shrimp chips (pictured; $7).

It’s a sandwich that spans the miles between Downtown and Rosemead surprisingly well. Dipping the crunchy baguette into the anise-perfumed broth, the bread moves toward the texture of a soft roll, giving the brisket a boost of flavor and doubling the depth of its taste to recall the roast beef of Downtown’s sandwiches. The bright flavors and heat of the traditional banh mi garnishes–pickled carrots and daikon, cucumber and jalapeño–maintain their crunch, keeping this sandwich grounded in Vietnam.

With the cross-cultural taco now a near-necessity–everything from kalbi to kosher brisket to tandoori-grilled meats has been stuffed into tortillas at myriad trucks and restaurants–it’s refreshing to see Xoia pick up on a new reference point from Los Angeles’ food history.

Xoia, 1801 W. Sunset Blvd., Echo Park; 213-413-3232

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY, OR POSSIBLE.

WHY WINNING MATTERS: BECAUSE IF YOU WIN, YOU WILL BE GOING TO HEAR THE AMAZING MARK BITTMAN SPEAK ABOUT HIS NEW BOOK, FOOD MATTERS ON OCTOBER 5TH, 2010.

Mark Bittman speaks at 6th and I Synagogue

TO ENTER, SIMPLY SUBMIT A PHOTO, TAKEN BY YOU, OF A SANDWICH, ANY SANDWICH, along with up to five sentences on why this sandwich matters. Or is matter. For that matter.

All submissions will be reviewed by our judges, and the lucky winner will receive TWO tickets to the Mark Bittman event at Sixth and I Synagogue on October 5, 2010. If you are super lucky, I will sit next to you.

You may send your photos and comments as attachments here, at The Lunch Encounter, or you may send them directly to me at LisaCherkasky@gmail.com

WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24TH, 2010.

GOOD LUCK. Oh and, please no more than 11 submissions per contestant.

Photo by Scott Suchman, Styling by Me, Art Direction by Amanda White

Baltimore Magazine

From a steak such as this, one hopes for leftovers. From a steak such as this, one makes a SANDWICH! The first meal, the actual steak, is your duty, a prerequisite, Steak Sandwich 101. From this obligation springs a STEAK SANDWICH. Now for that, I will put on a skirt and heels. Both days.