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What is this?
This, my dear, is a rich sardine.

¡¡¡SARDINISTAS!!!

¡¡¡SARDINISTAS!!!

¡¡¡SARDINISTAS!!!

Myself, I love a sardine sandwich. Little lettuce, s+p, the p just ground with big hot pieces, sticky smoothch of sandwich glue – gooey homemade mayonnaise, firm bread thinly sliced, hair thin onion circles. Just like a Canned Sannedwich, sardines are right there in your pantry, keeping you safe and fed, come hell or highwater.

NPR Weekend Edition talks green eating with Mark Shelley of the Sardinistas. 
Mercurio says once people try sardines, they’re hooked. And right now is one of the few times you can get fresh sardines. The sardine season started at the beginning of July.

Myself, I would not be caught dead in an orange hunting cap. No sartorial infractions necessary for sardine season.

about the gyro? Slowly spinning in the windows of my late-night, pseudo-college days, the particle board of meat was and is mesmerizing.
The Gyro’s History Unfolds

We are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glow-worm. 
Winston Churchill

Cloud Sandvich by Gülkan Böke

Up at 5 AM and off I went. Ran like that legendary South American tribe. Aware of tense muscles, especially the toes, and of trying to flow with the land. A controlled fall, at ease, with total awareness of the surface under my feet. Red cardinals busy with their early morning courtship, little rabbits happily munching on morning dewed grass. Getting back was even more joyful. Surrounded by a flock of sparrows, some did fly right before me for a moment with my chest almost touching their tail feathers. For that brief period I was happy to be free of the past.

The following day, I got freakin’ sick. The most pathetic perversities in harmony with extreme pomposity of bohemian bs, faded in to one gigantic headache of why? Squinting through my burning eyesockets to my doodling of the cloud sandwich. Sour aroma surrounded me while rushing towards marshmallow whiteness. I always thought I would bounce but ended up falling through into the abyss of darkness…

What a pile of horse s..t! 😉

And the clouds, Mr. Böke? What about the clouds?

Not an Onion headline :
Iowa Woman Discovers New Cloud Type

Assess overhead. Note clouds. Consult your beloved Cloudspotter’s Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society . Lick your finger, point it up, and note the cooling airflow. Is it daft to follow the draft? Once you get your head in the up-ness of the clouds, there in the center of the fog, each drop of vapor is crystal clear. Of course, you can’t see out…

Mr. Pretor-Pinney appears to possess no shortage of exuberance, gayly hanging himself out there as a cloud enthusiast. You go, Mr. Pretor-Pinney! And take me with you.

The exuberant personality generates envy, resentment, irritation, admiration, and sometimes your basic tiger-by-the-tail exhaustion. That’s the view from here anyway. From now on you can refer to me as the weather girl, a meteorologist of the human personality. DUCK! Here comes a meteor nowwwww!!!!!

In his review of Exuberance by Kay Redfield Jamison, Colin McGinn writes,
She argues that exuberance is crucial to creativity and achievement, as well as being a nice thing in itself  but, In the end, the thesis of the book reduces to the unhelpful formula: Exuberance is a really good thing, except when it’s not.

Mr. McGinn, an admittedly reticent person, reticence being a trait not typically associated with exuberance, further presses his point, Ms. Jamison also treats exuberance as if it were a broad trait with no subspecies, a kind of free-floating up-ness. But surely exuberance is selective: You can be exuberant about one thing and not another. I would say that discriminating exuberance, not the all-over-the-place kind, is most conducive to creativity and success, for it enables the mind to focus on a specific subject or task.

What can I say, you got to get outta the way of these reckless exuberant types. Not sure I agree 100%, but the discriminating side of me can see Mr. McGinn’s point. Please put me in a new sub-classification, not a free-floating up-ness. More horizontal layering with a uniform base, than noticeable vertical with clearly defined edges. More flat and featureless than puffy and cottonlike. More stratus than cumulus, thanksverymuch. Hmm, on further thought, make me a good, old-fashioned raging mass of cumulonimbus storm clouds and toss in a tornado warning while yer at it.

We live by Bone around here.

Uncrinkle the package – brown bag, white bag, plastic bag – and shuffle past the first heel, like flicking LPs in a bin. Onward to the meat of the matter. Get to the other end and the first heel starts to look mighty tasty, particularly if it is the only bread in the house, bar putting on shoes and making a foray. Nahhh.

Lying awake thinking about the bread coming to an end before I have eaten my fill, heels and all.

Had a stern talk with myself tonight, or this morning – 3 am – depends how you squint at it (go to sleep already).

Lay down your arms (outside of the bedclothes, it’s warm in here)
And love me peacefully (choose a side and resolve yourself)
Lay down your arms (if it feels wrong, don’t do it)
And love me tenderly (to thine own self be true)

Use your arms to hold me tight (but not too tight)
Baby, I don’t want to fight no more (and it feels so good to sleep)

Such a battle with one’s brain sometimes. A chokehold on your consciousness. Unclench your jaw and sleep. Sleep. Sleep ALREADY!

And would it be a 50 pointer? Hmmm. That would be 8 letters if you played it on the board. Well, dang, guess you’d have to play it first, across the star, use every letter in your crib, and come out of the gate charging. It does have appetizing visual appeal. Resmash. It weren’t smashed enough primarily. Must. Smash. Again.

 Trust her on this. When it is time to eat, she knows her way around. Clockwise and counter.
Look for Barbara behind the counter of her super sandwich shop, Columbine, in Tribeca.
Bread
Dijon
Egg (smash)
Arugula
Add bacon.
Fold bread.
Resmash with bread.
Serve with a few Rt. 11 Dill Pickle Chips and a chilled Gus Dry Meyer Lemon. I can vouch first, second and third hand for both Route 11 and for Gus’ Grown Up Sodas.

When Route 11 Chips were first introduced by the Tabard Inn in the 80’s, I was there, working the line, and sitting on a milk crate on the slow evenings of August, shooting the breeze and sweating royally. The chips arrived with no fanfare, test batches in tall, red metal canisters, the perfect height for a perch. Ate my weight in chips that first week, whether I had to shimmy off the canister for each grab or not. Nice slick of oil ringing the bottom of the bucket.

Grown Up Sodas bubble beautifully in a grown up beverage…say, the Cola in a Cuba Libre. Collins glass, crackling ice, lavish lime squirt, gurgling shot of white rum, a splash-just-a-splash of cola. Sip sub-ice through a straw.

Sent from her iPhone. Imagine.

Why is it, when you can’t sleep, or you are waiting for lunch, time passes as slowly as a slug in lead boots, and when you sleep, or you eat, time speeds past like a millipede on skates? Most agonizing of all, time moves in warp speed as a person gets, ahem, older. Sleep, creep, leap. I’m in the leap part for all intents and purposes. What gives with that?!?!?

While my brain is all tied up being time-boggled, another wordpair that causes cerebral stretch is this one: Time being. What in the name of Father Time does it mean? Does it mean NOW? Being what? I think of time, therefore it is. Now, that is. The time is now.

Exhausted now. Only antidote I can imagine for the time being, time being short, is a sandwich! Sust-sandwich-enance.

Thank you for the excellent clipping service, Mike of ComicsDC.

Tell you what, this Ginger Beer may come in a plain white wrapper, but it mixes up into a mighty fine Moscow Mule, with vodka, or into the Mule’s more laid back cousin, with rum. A few ‘o these under your hip huggin’ belt and you’ll be scrounging for bread and ham. Keep a little smelly cheese in your cottage, wash the arugula when you can still see single, and don’t worry bout burning yourself on the toaster. You won’t feel a thing, darlin’.

I’m feeling it now. The price of a mighty fine vacation – twelve hours on the east coast corridor where there is no guarantee you will get home, until you do, in fact, set foot inside. Sure could use a Mule in a Collins glass. Would he kick his way out?

Trim the crusts, wouldya lovey?
Too too tired to chew.
Home sweet home. Trew.

The Lunch Encounter is Closed for Vacation Until July 8th. Thank You for Your Patronage.

We stopped at the Super Duper Weenie on our way north again this year. The fries were thinner and even more toothsomely deelish.

Had every intention of posting from this heavenly island, thought I’d be relaxed and all, inspired. I am, believe you me, but the wifi only connects under the clothes line, in the back forty. It takes more fortitude than my holidaze self has got, to sit in the weeds and think sandwich over a keyboard. Nope. Rather play it safe up here on the patio where my glass is always three quarters full.

Serenely-Sonic Karin turned me on to this quirky catalog, sending me a warning note not to recycle it upon arrival. Up there in my home state, the pin on the map of my dreams, Karin lives between serene Green Bay and sonic Lake Michigan. She is one stake in the tent of my heart, holding me down when my mind is spinning away on east coast rogue winds.

I hope no one is reading this, seeing as I am getting carried away by melodramatic analogies. Open me another Leinie, wouldya honey?

Green Bay is the door to the door, swing through it and you are in Door County. Happy in the limestone steeped soil, sour cherries grow there. See pie below.

Definitely not on trend for locavores, this Foods Across America catalog will none-the-less cause deep yearning for your past locales. If you need it, NEED it, an airplane will bring it to you. Before your heart bursts from missing your accumlated life. I know that hotdogs are not part of the jet set, more badminton net set, and that flying ’em in as an indulgence not without repercussion, polar ice cap and all…     Still…..

 Amoroso rolls…
Usinger brats…
Boom, boom, boom, I don’t just wear my heart on my sleeve. That would be too subtle. I am a walking, breathing visible woman and you can read my heart‘s desires with no special high-tech equipment. Surprised it doesn’t bust right through my rib cage some days, from wanting things long gone up in smoke. Just give me a taste now and then – my imagination can fill in between the dots.
Add these five to my fridge door and that would bring us up to 17 mustard varieties. How much mustard could a housekeeper chuck, if a housekeeper could chuck mustard? None! Ya leave those jars with mere scrapings in ’em alone!

So see, if your cravings are wilder than your travels, you can armchair it, or maybe you better stick to the picnic table so your mom don’t yell at ya. “What’re these crumbs doing all over the sofa?!” Sandwiches go better with the smell of clovery grass and the ache of a splinter in your elbow anyway now, don’t they?? Don’t let the screen door give your PF Flyers a flat tire on yer way out.

The phrase “wash it all down” does not sound good to me. Does it wash down clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counter clockwise in the southern? These sugar-sweetened sodas with the labels that do not scream BRAND BRAND BRAND at you deserve a slow sip through a straw. Concentrates the carbonation and elevates the sensation. Up, up, up through a stripy tube to you. Them bubblez are good for your heart.

≈The owner offered up his 18-month-old boinging, fur-spewing, joy-lathering collie mix. Tempted, tantalized, tickled, I asked, “What’s his name?”
“Thomas.”
Feeling all happy – bright morning, 11 extra minutes of pure freedom before work, handsome dog making his paws, head, chest comfortable on my lap – I took a hard look down the narrow alley. 
Light at the end of that tunnel. A tiny sliver of freedom. I’m turning the corner gently into a sunny street and hope I live long enough to wallow.
Maybe we’ll get a dog in the fall. I’ve got Thomas’ number in my mobile.

The Bean Counter is in upper Georgetown. On sunny mornings you can simulate an exuberance pill by sitting at “just the one” table out front and waving to passing truckers chugging their way downhill.

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“The sandwich was as good as ever — the best sandwich in Georgetown,” reports longtime customer Peter Smathers Carter, 24. “Their Cuban is the best authentic Cuban sandwich I have ever had.”

The sandwich ($7-8) was the standout on the menu, with the sweetness of the ham and house-roasted pork mixing harmoniously with gooey, buttery Swiss cheese and the tartness of pickles and mustard. The bread adds to the texture and flavor, its thin and greaseless grilled crust veiling the tenderness inside. Washingtonpost.com