Category Archives: Uncategorized

BGR brings to mind GangBusteRs.

BUSTERS fellas! Move over! Big, dripping burgers on brioche buns.

Got a funny feeling they are poised for franchising, ready to pounce.

Cover photo by Scott Suchman. Styling by Yours Truly

A request for halfa shake and 15 fries did not seem to upset em. No Bon Qui Qui at this counter, and security did not strong arm me. Just call me Donna, Prima Donna.

A long time ago, at the Tastee Diner one night late with Phil and Kelly, after Twist and Shout, Phil ordered gravy fries with a hot fudge sundae, the extreme version of fries and a shake. His gravy was cooling like mad and congealing, and the ice cream was melting like mad and turning into a puddle, and Phil was eating away madly at them both , head flying back and forth. Man against nature.

This was one of those days when “You must have a fun job!” rang true. Yahue!

(Bread)breaking news!

CourtesyoftheAP. Thankyouverymuch.

RI mayor’s brother, an ex-con, opens sandwich shop

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A former attorney whose brother is the mayor of Providence, R.I., has gone from federal prison inmate to sandwich shop owner. The new business is called Federal Wrap.

John Cicilline (siss-ill-EE’-nee) tells The Providence Journal that he became known for making wraps while in federal prison, where he was sent in 2008 after pleading guilty to shaking down a pair of drug dealers.

He was released in February and opened the shop in April with financing from family and friends. His menu is filled with wraps named for other inmates at the Fort Devens federal prison in Massachusetts.

CourtesyofHollywoodGoodfella. Thankyouverymuch.

Cicilline is not running away from his time spent behind bars. The menu board high above the counter has wraps named after inmates he befriended at Fort Devens, the federal prison compound about 40 miles west of Boston. There’s Rex’s Wrap, Steak Joost, the Riggi Reuben, Ralphy Wrap, and Ernie’s Veggie. He also makes Deven’s Dog, which is a hot dog smothered with cheddar cheese and caramelized onions.

The mayor, through his spokeswoman, had little to say about Federal Wrap.

“As with every new business in Providence, the mayor has every hope for its success,” she wrote.

Cicilline is divorced and the oceanfront house in Narragansett is gone. He has three daughters who help him with the business. He grew teary-eyed talking about how one of them couldn’t go to Hofstra University last year because he couldn’t afford to pay the tuition.

Cicilline can’t afford his own apartment, so he lives with his parents on Broadway.

“Today, I appreciate the value of a dollar,” Cicilline said. “I didn’t appreciate it before I got in trouble. I don’t want to say I’m glad it happened, but everything happens for a reason.”

Reusies look like cute cloth envelopes for your sandwich.

Goes the rhyme on the homepage of Reusies’ site.

Shopping NOW, as I write.

Listen, I’ve been washing plastic bags since the day I was born. The plastic-bag-hanging-dryer thingamabob that I made for my mother out of a wooden hanger, red ribbon, and 12 wooden clothespins FORTY-THREE YEARS AGO is still in her kitchen, still in use. I kid you not. With reusies, the kitchen laundry is cute.

STARSTRUCK

From Creston Lea up in Vermont:

I came home yesterday and found that piece of toast on my daughter’s table.
My wife has figured out the alluring powers of shaped toast in feeding a kid
who often says, “I don’t eat food.”

I’m trying to think of a single food reference in that book…pretty slim
pickings. My characters barely talk, much less eat. I think some Donettes
show up in Indian Summer Sunday. Oh…there IS some food talk in the story
called Let The Sad Times Roll On. No sandwiches, though…I don’t think.
Fennel? Artichokes?

Buy his book, Wild Punch. Read it, even if you are a person who says, “I don’t read books.”

SQUIRRELLUCK

Can you see the little cut-out star in the middle of his sandwich? Toasted the star for myself and had a tiny snack. My motto is: I eat food. In the narrowest, pre-industrial, sense of the word. Food. I wonder what Creston’s daughter eats. If not food, what is left?

I looked down at this blog, saw the piles and piles of sandwich ephemera, and rather than removing anything, I thought the problem was that it doesn’t have enough stuff on it. Hey, how about Leo and Joel?

Ian: Whoever was creating this sandwich looked down, saw the lasagna and red sauce, and rather than removing anything, they thought the problem was that it didn’t have enough stuff on it. Hey, how about a fried egg?

Leo: You really have a full day’s worth of meals here. A fried egg for breakfast, a cheese sandwich for lunch, and lasagna for dinner.

Joel: Except you eat it in 15 minutes.

Leo: I don’t know if that’s the most flattering angle to photograph this sandwich.

Joel: There isn’t a good angle.

Read on. You will be happy you did, particularly if you have been pondering the meaning of a Jewish cheesesteak.

Subway’s Lawyers Tell Rest Of World To Stop Selling “Footlong” Sandwiches

Subway has been sending legal letters to sandwich places informing them that Subway “has applied for the trademark FOOTLONG (TM) in association with sandwiches,” and instructing them to stop calling their sandwiches “footlongs” or else.

Read the rest of the story here.

Read my post on Subway’s footlong here.

Subway, get over yourself.

An intriguing alert came in over the transom a while back from Suits-Herself-Cindy:

Jon and I went to dinner tonight at the Lebanese Butcher and Market in Falls Church. It was delicious. He had lamb chops and I had a Saudi Arabian goat dish. Really, really good. Yummy rice and sauces and little pickled veggies, plus the delicious meat.

But, you should check out the sandwiches. They have some crazy lamb sandwiches — lamb liver and heart sandwich? Lamb brain sandwich?

I think Freya would like it because they have a big tacky waterfall that she would think was cool. Plus I want to check out the market which I did not do on this visit.

Lotsa labne and cans of “Luncheon Meat”. Whoa.

Wondering what to do with labne?

Labne and Mint Sandwiches (Recipe from Desert Candy)
1 sheet marquq bread (Lebanese mountain bread), or savory crepe or other very thin bread
Labne
Olive oil
Fresh mint leaves
Pitted black olives – nice ones

1. Preheat a griddle. Spread a thick layer of labne over half the bread. Drizzle with olive oil, scatter mint leaves and olives over top. Fold bottom half of bread up over filling, then fold in half to form a triangle. Place sandwich on the griddle just to briefly toast each side. Slice sandwich in half into two smaller triangles, eat immediately.

A few people I know have mentioned it. It’s in this little corner of Falls Church where there are a lot of hole-in-the-wall restaurants. I don’t know how many of them are good, but this one was great.

At one point a man walked through from the store carrying this enormous, very ornate gold platter with a lid. I think that you can probably order a whole goat for a party and it comes in something like that. Jon and I both said to each other at the same time that WE want to have a party with a goat on a huge ornate platter. We’ll have to think of an occasion.

The place is on the dingy side with, as I mentioned, a large tacky waterfall. So, the ambiance is lacking a little. But it didn’t really matter at all.

If you are interested I’ll go with you and try the liver and heart. Not sure I can do the brain one.

I could, and I do, and I did. Cindy, to her credit, took a healthy taste, and liked it. Loving seeing this sort of thing – a maligned food – on a menu and hope that it is ordered often enough to keep ’em available. After all, in the words of frequent Lunch Encounter guest David Kmetz,

“If you think about our ancient ancestors, they fed mostly on fruits, nuts, berries and greens – things that were easy to harvest and consume with a minimum of fuss. Bringing down a 3-ton mammoth or mastadon was a totally different matter, and probably was the rare exception to the omnivore diet. Plus, they used every bit of that kill – the skin for warm clothing, the bones and tusks for weapons and tools, the guts for food and casings, etc.”

And the brain for sandwiches, I betcha.

Lamb brain sandwich on the left, heart/liver/kidney on the right. We both preferred heart/liver/kidney. Enjoying brain…nature or nurture? I prefer them with nice, brown, crispy edges. Sautéed in clarified butter does the trick. You gotta play tricks on the mind to eat a brain.

Color me 40 shades of inlove with Lebanese Butcher. 40 shades of inlurve, inloaf, inlabne.

Pickled Turnips
KABEES EL LIFT

This is an Authentic Lebanese Recipe

2 cups water
1 cup vinegar
2 tsp. salt
1 beetroot
Several garlic cloves

Big glass jars of these rose colored pickles decorate the front windows of many Arab restaurants in the Middle East. They are easily prepared and are very good with meza.

Wash turnips well and cut off a slice from the tops and bottoms. Slice lengthwise into quarter-inch slices to within a half-inch of the bottom of the turnip. Do not separate the slices entirely from each other. Soak in water overnight. Wash well in the morning. Place in glass jar with the beetroot, to give color to the pickles. Cover with the pickling solution prepared from the above ingredients.

These pickles may be eaten after three days.

The letter read,
Dear Aunt Barb,
Today was a grat day.

The bf, his kids, my kid and I had grat day out in Charlottesville, VA. Monticello, the beloved and inventive home of Thomas Jefferson is just outside of Charlottesville, and a visit to Monticello precipitated the outing, obstensibly. Thomas Jefferson is cool and all, author of the Declaration of Independence (can you imagine?) and all, the man who brought ice cream to the United States, founder of the University of Virginia with it’s graciously porticoed dwellings, innovative farmer, and the man who had the instinct to bring vanilla from Paris to Virginia.  Yup, Jefferson is cool and all, all 6 feet 2 and all….but we hadda have lunch!

FEAST

Yup, it was a grat day, way back when. Earlier this year, I think, 2010. Now we are headed towards 2011 and a whole new world of lunch encounters. Declaring independence indeed.

Speaking of TADAAAA, the Thor T@da has me filled with lustful desire. When the workday clock ticks in half time, I dream of a sandwich safari, Tada in tow.

T@B just got bigger. Introducing T@DA. (Pronounced “Tah-Dah”)

The mighty fine boyfriend and I went to Mexico and, naturally, it seems like eons ago, although it was just earlier this year, during the stretch we thought would never end, the snowmaggeddon stretch that ~pouf~ evaporated into bursting-at-the-pollen-puffed-seams SPRING. Boing, bounce, bing, boing. It is as warm here now as it was in Mexico then.
The choices, thanks be to the gods, are limited on Isla Holbox, when it comes to lunchtime. Limited choices in all things there. More thanks, genuinely. We revisited Pablo’s sweet lunch encounter under the tarpaulin, and he was a first class act through and through every day, in or out of his chef whites. The beauty of small town life was incapsulated there. Richness and depth within limits, something that has been hot on my mind lately after being reminded by Wendell Berry that parameters are a thing of beauty. An unavoidable gift.
Tortas were new to me. Just when you think there is nothing new to be revealed to you, along comes a torta, or rather, along came I, TO the torta, and life was fresh again. Fresh and exciting, both exotic and wonderfully ordinary.

Pablo said “Spag-ghe-teeeeee” when I snapped his picture. Try it yourself. Loosens the cheeks more naturally than “Cheeeese”, which sometimes turns a smile into a jaw-clenching grimace.

Heat is good for my appetite. When my shoulders unhunch and my fingers are limber enough to wrap themselves around an oozing zeppelin of a sandwich, the conversation simultaneously brightens and slows, companionship over a table appeals again, and I feel hungry, truly hungry, for meals that hang ten over the edges of the plate, and for the crawl of juice running down my arms.Phoenix Magazine knows that a Mexican torta is not for dessert and that it is not goopy. Goopy?? Not on Isla Holbox under Pablo’s canopy. And not The Cochinita, distinguished on the mag’s best sandwich list.

As many times as I have been to Arizona, I have yet to set foot in Phoenix. Some folks say it is a culinary desert, but I don’t believe it. I don’t believe in culinary deserts. There is always something good to eat, if you look hard enough and with unlimited parameters.

SANDWICHUESAS