Category Archives: Uncategorized

Just as I was warming a bit to these con-carni-struct-vore-cepts, the creatives at the advertorial round table tossed out a curve ball. Curveballs rather. Meatballs. Guiness worthy meatballs. Guargantuan meatballs to tuck into an Italian loaf the size of New Jersey, nap with marinara and christian Das Boot.

We rose to the occasion. The value of rising to the occasion, any and all, was impressed upon me by Kate McConnell. She never does otherwise. Ever, from what I can discern. Separates the men from the boys, donchaknow.

Super(b) Superbowl Sammiches

(*My all time fave Onion headline.)

Well, I have an enduring headache, but gonna talk anyway. Two regular Lunch Encounter patrons remarked recently that the joint has been quite subdued lately. Not your usual rollicking romp. Humph.

I made an ill-guided stab at a linear, coherent post (see, or rather don’t see, It’s a Wonder, February 22, 2009). Such a plodding, flat-footed downer it’s a wonder I did not hang up my sandwich-loving soul for eternity. Back to stream of consciousness. Click click click go my brain electro-nodes. Snappity snap snap. The brain band is telekinetic gits, subsonic bass, sonic booms, and mic wrecks. Ooooh, headache much better.

Back to ridiculousness. Who sez gettin’ outta yer comfort zone is good 4 ya?! Huh?! Unless of course you leave the zone in pursuit of rockin’ ‘n rollin’…kissin’ and tellin’….drivin’ and cryin’….hard breakin’ and heart achin’. We did. We drove for days and days, lots of it in a stiff rain.
On a four day Odyssey to St Louis to see my beloved Bottle Rockets, Heidi and I made our first stop in Hancock, MD at the Park-N-Dine. Park was not much of a draw considering both the desolation and the abundant pavement. Though Dine we did, cozily.
The placemats had bee pollen ads, sez Heidi. Sweet.
The spread of cell phone reception and the chicken caesar have been congruous. From metropolitan veins to micropolitan arteries to ruralipolitan capillaries. Heat seeking. Both can sense a beating heart from a 100 mile+ radius.
A wrap is not a sandwich, is it? Nah. You gotta draw the line somewheres. A wrap must be a “More”. A ha. Have pondered that classification since the unfortunate onset of wraps. Git yerself a wrap means, git yerself a little somethin to warm yer shoulders, darlin. A little sweater, a sweet cardigan, draped just so, perhaps with the top button fastened at your clavicle.
We hung tight to a wrap-free zone. Very comfy. A sandwich from a time before we had minds. Minds that did much more than play, that is. Midwestern childhood style. Ham and cheese. Cheese and ham. An eternally gleaming combination. Not brilliant, not glittering, just a nice steady glow. Settle in, let the butter moisten your winter-worn lips and turn your paper napkin translucent.

We traveled so well, give and take, William Shatner and Cake, up early and up late. The spirit of the freeway rewarded us, speaking through Heidi at the alter of the wall, the wall of vending machines. Spiral drop machines. She dropped in her coins, Reese’s in mind. Waiting, watching, slow turning, harrowing. NoooooooooooO! Stuck. Stuck. Stuck. And then, breath held, ~bewham~, once, twice, thrice. Nice!

And what good is a blog after all if it does not shout, ME, ME, ME??

On newstands now. Let’s keep our fingers crossed (for my sake please and for hardworking writers and stylists everywhere) that this zine takes hold.

That’s ri-iight. Go for serrated on the wiches. My recommendation? The handy dandy, loved by frugal cooks, won’t-bust-yer-knuckles, bang bang bang, F Dick Offset 7-Inch Bread Knife! Still an amazing bargain at pennies less than 25 buX! Goin’ gun-slingin’ kitchen style? You gotta get a Dick.

Toastove.
White enamel combo toaster, hotplate, and warming oven.
Manufacturer: Lasko Metal Products Inc.
Brand Name: Toastove.
Model Number: none on toaster
Keep this in your bedroom and you can have lunch at your fingertips while still prone. Do NOT set your pillow aflame. It will smoke and then smolder for days.

Hand appliance takes on a whole new meaning when you are a food stylist. Did you know you can cook an entire pizza or tuna melt with an electric paint stripper? Or toast tortillas with a jeweler’s torch? An electric charcoal starter wand makes the most beautiful grill or panini marks, baby. While I have never tried it I have heard one can cook a pork chop between two irons. Do you suppose the fat seeps into the steam jets? Press the collars of your dress whites and expect to be nuzzled!

Wonderbread nearly went belly up. Non-Atkins belly.

I am no fan of Wonder Bread. To my great good fortune I am the daughter of a dairy and bakery man. Childhood included Quaker Dairy produced milk, butter, ice cream, cottage cheese, sliced sandwich bread, flour topped hamburger rolls, swirled cinnamon loaves and donuts, all delivered early in the morning, although I believe ours came home with my dad at the end of a long days.

Truly, the world would be a better, more nourished – body and soul – place had Wonder Bread never come to be. While I have no hard facts, no statistics, no study data at my fingertips, I feel strongly that factory-produced, bottom-line driven food of any kind, and bread in particular in this diatribe, is, plainly put, bad. Not so plainly put, abominable, corrosive and a slap in the face to all preceding and subsequent dedicated bakers.

My two cents are utterly superfluous as Wonder Bread has taken its place in the culinary vernacular as dreck. The package, on the other hand, garners my complete respect. The dots entrance me.

The artist Linda St John has put the red dots of Wonder Bread to a use that deepens their authenticity, or perhaps embodies them with a hard scrap of authenticity. When Googled, Ms. St. John appears to be primarily an author. Having encountered her powerful 2 and 3 dimensional works long before reading her words, I would define her, with ragged edges, as an artist first. A compulsive and prolific artist who cuts tiny red buttons, at most 1/8-inch in diameter, from Wonder Bread bags. Buttons for fields of wavering girls. Wavering girls who appear to have been raised on foods purchased for the power of their visual bulk, a seeming bargain, such as Wonder Bread. It’ll fill you up. Not.

We’d like some chickens. This is not news at Ranch Double 18.

Did not do the Facebook 25 Random Things List, but had I, numbers 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 and 24 would all have read: My brain, left to its own devices, defaults to repetitive counting, gently forcing the world into 4’s.

We live here at Ranch Double 18 because the RR Number is pleasing to my brain. RR3618. Think about it. 3+6+1+8=18. 18×2=36. 3618. Oh the synchronicity. All these years I have wondered how could I have ended up in the suburbs. How could I have? How? My brain latched onto the numbers stenciled on the curb – 3618 – and I was done for. Signed, sealed and delivered. Well, the comfort is…the end is near, but not here, and perhaps I will make another stop along the route.

Back to the chickens. Here at Ranch Double 18 we would like some chickens. For the eggs. And for the meat, too, later. Egg salad. Roast chicken. Roast chicken you have fed, housed, stared in the eye and killed. And then happily eaten with salt, pepper and mayonnaise. After staring down the olives for their oil for the mayo.

This comes to mind – again – by way of the fact that Silvia did reiki on chickens. And brought them back to real life. Those chickens – at her parents place in Spain – were in rough shape. A shape roughly resembling chickens after the dogs roughed ’em up. You may think that reiki is not real, which renders it unreal in the thought process. Fortunately, for their own sakes in this case, the thought process of chickens is uncomplicated. Their brain waves cut a wide, slow swath, easily latched onto by reiki’s focus and cling.

The question is – back to the those dang chickens here at Ranch Double 18 – could I indeed wring the neck of a chicken? Hell’s bells, I don’t know! Lobsters are one thing. Lobsters have been many things on my plate, all of them dead things, killed with my own two hands. The last time I did it though, I felt a little queasy on the killing part. Perhaps that’s the idea. The eating part was butter nirvana, a clear conscience being key.

Silvia is connected. Well, of course she is connected, she practices reiki, the great connector. Electric. Silvia has a friend and I’m going be needing that friend because, get this, Jaume, the friend, hypnotizes chickens. Stare ’em down, hypnotize ’em, chop ’em up. Nicely. Don’t forget the sea salt and just ground pepper.

Apparently, if you watch enough youtube, you know all about hypnotizing chickens, but I don’t and I don’t, so Silvia did some primary research for me and asked Jaume for a blow by blow. Blow by blow is below:

Hello girls,

My technique consists of taking a hen, putting it on the ground upside down, with the claws pointing to the blue sky, and making it look at my finger or a little stick while I draw a line on the earth with it. After several times doing the line, I would get away from it and leave it in the same position, upside down, staring at somewhere.

Best regards,
Jaume

Know what else? There is no pond here, so we are not tempted by ducks. Good thing, my life is already hanging by a thread. Pecked to death by ducks. Slow, steady, dull thuds. And these are only metaphorical ducks. Spare me the real thing. Chickens, yes chickens. So much safer for the spirit.

There’s no news like sandwich news, sez the Divine Miss M.
A slice of Pittsburgh on menu at popular Tampa sandwich shop
Pittsburgh is everywhere lately, leading with its self, its sandwich self.

Used to love the Texas-Wisconsin Border Cafe in Richmond with its menu tipping the German side of the scale hard. To my mind Brocato’s in Tampa captures a kindred spirit and could adapt the nom de sandwich Pittsburgh-Tampa Border Cafe, a sort of culinary border blaster.

Alert in from When-I-Grow-Up-I-Wanna-Be-You, Ellen:

Go Green Lunchbox
Do you spose there are more right-side-up skulls on the back?

Lead-free I get, but what in tarnation is “leach-free”? “Unique erasable white board” on the inside flap so you can write a “loving note or simple reminder to your child.” Ha! Big Mother is watching you. Which reminds me. Once when he was tiny he asked me, “Are you gonna get old and sick and die and you won’t be my mother anymore?” I fixed him with a steely stare and said with a stone-cold tone, “I will always be your mother.” Ha! Big Mother will always be watching you.

Also available in Gator Dots and Hound’s Tooth!

Right under my nose in my hometown. How could Mangialardo’s have gotten by me all these years? How could I have gotten by without Mangialardo’s all these years??

The comm was no chicken feed. Mangialardo’s is the bomb.

Lunch hour at this sandwich-shrine brings a crowd of uniforms – deep blue with badges and starched white with ruddy winter-shaved cheeks. Calmly enraptured they stand with tickets pinched between first fingers and thumbs. Our encounter could have been a dead-drop, not a word spoken or glance exchanged. Gum shoe it to the counter, order the G-Man as instructed, step aside and wait.
Sorted throught my pocket litter to peel a little cabbage.
Mental note: Never travel without my peep. Heidi is one high-class walk-in with a good eye.

Postscript: Sent an alert to the spouse of my source.

The wife: Roger, Wilco. 10-4! Glad you liked it. I will grab the E (for enforcer) and show him.
The Lunch Encounter: You quack me up. May I post your comments?
The wife: Affirmative.