Category Archives: Uncategorized

She is the source of (nearly) all nourishment.

(My all-time favorite word? Iloveyoumom. Spoken at lightspeed.)

Okay, light. That you gotta get from King Sun. It takes two. Yes it dwo.

Today, tiny hail BBs dropping and ferocious skies overhead, were our little patch of earth to be any greener, it would vibrate. 

Gentlemen, start your global positioning systems! Big Momma Earth makes one mother of a sandwich. 

Zefrank

Ze is a perfomer, satirist, essayist, composer, dancer and wonderfully weird guy who challenged his audience last month to create the world’s first “Earth sandwich.”

To make an Earth sandwich you must:

1. Put a piece of bread on the ground.
2. Have someone else put a piece of bread on the ground directly on the other side of the Earth from you.
3. Do this at the same exact time, so the Earth at that moment is “sandwiched” between two pieces of bread.

To inspire his audience, Ze composed a ballad, “If the Earth were a sandwich…”
It’s hummable. Beautiful even.

Robert Krulwich on Science

(What sort of a wich is a Krulwich? One too – one two – coldly beautiful to eat?)

Please excuse my ignorance, I can find so little online about this book or about Ms. Handslip. Please excuse the fussy tomato rose, I believe Ms. Handslip is British. Just a little Slip-‘o-the-Hand, that rose, paring knife in hand. No reviews on this, no sample recipes. Scratch, zilch, zip, zot.

When the Piper holds out his hand and demands, “Pay up!!” turn towards pork.
Click here for proof that bacon butties cure hangovers.That’s right, I said proof. Proof. Hard and fast.

Scientists Say the Best Hangover Cure  Is a Bacon Butty

and remember, Bingeing on alcohol depletes neurotransmitters. Bacon contains a high level of amines which tops these up, giving you a clearer head.

Elin Roberts, science development manager at the Centre for Life in Newcastle, says: “Food doesn’t soak up the alcohol, but it does increase your metabolism – helping you to deal with the after-effects of over-indulgence.

“So food will often help you feel better. Bread is high in carbohydrates and bacon is full of protein, which breaks down into amino acids.

“Your body needs these amino acids, so eating them will make you feel good. Bingeing on alcohol depletes neurotransmitters too, but bacon contains a high level of amines which tops these up, giving you a clearer head.”

There’s even a scientific formula behind that tantalising aroma of a bacon sandwich, reports the Daily Mirror.

Elin adds: “If you’ve got amino acids and reducing sugars at a heat above 150 degrees centigrade, it kickstarts the Maillard Reaction in the pan.

“That means lots of lovely smells are released and it’s this which draws us in. I know of three vegetarians who have been broken by the smell of bacon.”

Courtesy of My Main Sandwich Man in NYC, JAF, who sez he is “glad to be of service.”

MSMINYC strikes again …

Building On Layers of Tradition

Bánh Mí is in. Check out Song Que in Falls Church, VA and Banh Mi in Annandale, VA. You can look at my Banh Mi post here.

I am partial to a banh mi place out Route 50 in Annandale, Virginia (see link above) where they serve, atypically I believe, a tofu banh mi. Tastier than one would expect. Way tastier.

“T.O.F.U. = Too Old For Use”
Jeff Cesario, Funny Guy, sat in sometimes with Regalia, right? or was it only with 4 Chairs No Waiting?

Clarification/Correction

Cesario was a member (conguero) of Regalia, not 4 Chairs, and played with us at the Brathaus and Cardinal.

(Us is Regalia).

Brat With, Ordering!

Those were the days. Some days. Spudnuts in the morning, Cardinal Bar at night. I ate my weight in onion rings every week.

Did a little joyful time traveling with Frank Zappa’s Peaches and Regalia on a dreary wet April morning. This morning. Cruel. Cruel. Cruel. April will make your heart ache from the vibrancy of wet tulips.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

Choices. Often they are our only power. No matter how much research, thought, consideration, investigation, imagination goes into our choices, they are a crapshoot. There are bad choices, yes, and, according to my sister Mara, and I concur wholeheartedly, many supposed bad choices have pleasing consequences.

Or fester like a sore – and then run?

Choices. When bad ones are imposed on you, well, you do your best to forgive, if you know how, and to be empathetic, compassionate. Mostly the bad choices could not be helped. Or, if you ask my hard-hearted id-twin, the instigator could have helped it, but didn’t. Point being, they didn’t. It couldn’t be helped.

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Choices. The power of making one can be paralyzing, intoxicating.
Watching Shriners zip about in tiny cars at the St. Patrick’s Day parade, I was reminded of the stream of Shriners in red Corvairs who passed below my Greyhound window in a dusty corner of Colorado in 1986 and of a tiny, silly dream/fantasy I used to nurture. 
“Unsafe at any speed”, the Corvair was/is my dream bed. Park it in the center of a sprawling, concrete-floored living space, fill the trunk with 8354 thread count linens, engineer the dash to accomodate a 10W-30 coffee maker, a woofered iPod dock, and a GPS that sends you out risin’ and shinin’. Highly octanible dream/choice.

This dream, conversely, fell out of sight in my riew view mirror many years ago: A Lunch Encounter to call my own.

It is never gonna happen and I have put it to bed.

Or crust, and sugar over – like a syrupy sweet?

I’m updating my short list, the chain letter of my life. Some dreams are dropping off the bottom, while up at the top pop simpler, more finite possibilities. A Lunch Counter seemed so likely 25 years ago, while a Corvair bed not so much. Seeing the continuum in my head now, the bed, well, it’s imaginable. More than imaginable. Shoring up the second floor now to sustain the weight. Vee eight weight. The kind to put a person into heavy, heavy sleep.

Langston Hughes is laughing at me in his grave. Laughing at my indulgent dream of ownership. More ownership, I should say, as I live a life of great privilege and much ownership. Having dreams to put to bed is in itself sayin’ somethin’. At any rate, it is not the specifics of my dreams that bear weight, it is the fact that those times and opportunities are long past. I made other choices, some were made with intention and others were imposed. Your days of reckoning come long before the grave, bit by bit, piece by piece, as you tuck your long gone, tightly-held dreams in forever. 

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

met⋅ro⋅pol⋅i⋅tan   [me-truh-pol-i-tn] –adjective
1. of, noting, or characteristic of a metropolis or its inhabitants, esp. in culture, sophistication, or in accepting and combining a wide variety of people, ideas, etc.

Metro Connection talks DC sandwiches. Yes, we have a deserved reputation for being short on authentic delis, but if you are willing to put a few miles under your belt, there are delis worth the drive.

Food with Tim Carman: DC Delis
Washington is not known as a home of great delis and sub shops. But there’s a new Philadelphia-style Italian deli on H street, Northeast. And early indications are that the hoagies at Taylor Gourmet are worthy of the Philly tradition. Washington City Paper food writer Tim Carman joins us to talk about Taylor Gourmet – and to steer us to some of the best sandwich shops in the region.

The list:
Taylor Gourmet Deli
Deli City
Max’s Kosher Cafe
A. Litteri, Inc.
The Parkway Deli
The Italian Store
Jackson’s Roasting and Carving Co.

I would add the sandwich shrine of Mangialardo’s. Under the radar and exquisite in its simplicity.

The good news is, you could check off all stops within a week’s time, before circling back for a more in depth delve.

From the Sublime Miss M:
Symbolic Horseradish is One of Spring’s Early Risers

And from below is good too. Warm, wet earth urging the plants to grow up and, in the case of horseradish and other vegetables without which we would suffer, down as well. On second thought, with horseradish, with which we suffer. Delicious agony. 

Passover and Easter fall serendipitously close this spring and for those of us who flourish on rituals, symbols, myths, mysteries and rites, the seasonal cooking and feasting over the next few days could almost be daunting. Almost.

I have what Demetri Martin calls a conditional identity, sometimes I am Jewish (at the table) and sometimes I am, um, the obverse, or an obverse, culinary counterpart. As in when Dov Block asked his mother, granted he was only about 6 at the time, “Mom, is she Jewish or is she Christmas?” This time of year, am I Jewish or am I Easter?? A little maror, both kinds, on egg salad sure is tasty. Specially if the eggs were dyed before peeling.

Zzzzzzzzaaaaaaapppppp!

(He’s gonna get me.)

The Pastrami King Dies
The cold-cut king who turned the Carnegie Deli into a New York institution has died at age 90, but his legacy will live on in every over-stuffed corned beef sandwich. The New York Daily News
Led New York’s Carnegie Deli to World Renown

Stayin’ in’s nice.

I get the impression that women used to wear foundation garments under their housecoats. This one sure does look swell, swelling in all the right places, in her I-Love-Lucy pink, quilted robe. Next thing ya know, that Bustlin’ Betsy‘s going to splash some icy milk into that swanky swig, saunter over to give that drawer at 3/4 mast a swing of the hip, sliding this pristine scene back into seamless order. I’d be happy to get sassy during the starlight hours too, were some dashing, square-jawed fellow to fix me a ham sandwich.

Knitty
This cute cincher is knitted, no knidding. FYI girls, it’s DIY. Get those kneedles clicking while he snoozes.

Photo by Dean Alexander, Styling by Yours Truly

It’s gettin’ to be that time of year again. Time for me to pull the covers off the grills and mean to use ’em.

ISO a man with no hair on his forearms. A basting brush in one hand and tongs in the other. Squinting against the smoke. A man whose heart beats faster at the sound of fat hissing on fire.