Category Archives: Uncategorized

Apologies, nothing to do with sandwiches.

The Washington DC City Paper’s food issue, out last Thursday, ran a story called
How To Build a Dish Like a Food Stylist. Very kind of them.

After all these millions of years I finally met Darrow Montgomery, whose photos I admire. Was also very impressed with Jule Banville and hope that we will have further encounters, perhaps involving sandwiches. Jule did such a fine job in the writing that I was rewarded with this remark from a neighbor, “in the overall context of presenting chefs as totally beset by OCD, you come off as inspired, rather than psycho!” Little does she know…..

Do wish I had a make-up and hairstylist though. Jeez, I can’t do everything. Psycho much? Yes.

Mudflap Girls

This is an invitational, mind you, and these iconic chicks made the cut.
The 1st 6th Grilled Cheese Invitational

The 16th Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational

I harbor a warm spot for mudflap girls. They ride the highways, saucy as can be, not bothered by a bit of road splatter. Were I to drive long haul a pair would tail my trailer. Perhaps cause I am a sucker for Dieselbilly and the man who personifies it, Bill Kirchen. Bill coined the phrase, “To the manor born redneck,” wordplay that endeared him to me for eternity.

The sidewalk soundtrack, the wolf whistle, is long dead and buried. Could mudflap girls be long for this world?

OCTOBER 30, 2008
SANDWICH DUEL, PART 19
Written by Chris Onstad

When last I wrote (a while ago now, since I was out on the road promoting my new book, “The Great Outdoor Fight”), Frank Bruni (chief restaurant critic for the New York Times) was tickling away on an old six-string on my front lawn, and I had edged inside to prepare some lunch for him.

I smiled politely. “No, they’re not,” I thought.

Read more here.

Alert! Alert! Alert!
This just in from My Main Sandwich Man in NYC, JAF:

The Sandwich Run, Downtown
A SANDWICH is the quintessential New York lunch, a tasty package that makes swift work of the midday minutes we get to eat.

But even if you’re in Midtown, it’s worth taking an entire lunch hour to venture downtown to three new places with some of the best things since, and on, sliced bread.
Betsy Andrews

Heavens to Betsy, this piece is so well-written it makes me slurp.

And the inside word from a ‘hood insider is:

that pork sandwich on 7th st…

the place is so tiny!

Small enough to make a person squeal as they squeeze in.

Been on a bit of a scrapple jag, lately.

The fountain of scrapple spouts in PA, so over the weekend we drove north. We crested trim peaks fast enough to make our stomaches drop, winding along leafy, but nearly picked clean orchards.

Destination: Carlisle → Downtown → Fay’s → Scrapple

A Lunch Encounterer’s hours.

We are so hap, hap, happy that Kelly, Teen and Phoeboe have settled in Pennsylvania, close enough to drive up for lunch. Kelly doesn’t eat meat, but…

…her brave son accepted a bite of scrapple and smiled through it. Turns out that chap eats brussel sprouts and beets, “if they are roasted.” Quite refined, he is. That’s what a childhood in London will do for ya, lucky devil.

Kelly’s friend Steve’s grandmother (got that?) used to say “Buckwheat cakes with loads of butter make your lips go flitter flutter.”

Blue bucks, dead center. Ringed by eggs and a helluva lotta toast. A tad early for scrapple sandwiches, I settled for a side. Alone and flat, the scrapple sat, no wiggle, no jiggle, no sizzle. What it lacks in animation scrapple makes up for in taste, that livery taste that is a force with which to reckon, particularly before noon.

Toast or Scrapple…er….Scrapple or Toast

It WAS!!

The way we were as H. E. Doubletoothpicks, the band with a “big bottom”, two bassists. Kelly still brings it like nobody’s business!

PhillyGuy (whose mom makes a mean sandwich) wants to know: When are you going to write about scrapple? A salute to scrapple!! Hard to get here in NC and I wouldn’t try to cook it anyway – I leave that for mom.

And furthermore…

Thanks for the shout out and representing scrapple. Ahhh the memories. Suffering through Sunday morning mass at Immaculate Heart of Mary church, returning home to watch the 3 Stooges and then breakfast. Runny eggs, scrapple and english muffins. My Dad puts syrup on his scrapple – I never quite got that.

How could I have forgotten scrapple for so long? I knew the man who designed the package for Rapa Scrapple. Robbie Fulks sings about scrapple, “the pride of Pennsylvania”. “Hearty as a T-Bone, Slippery as a Tadpole” 10-the-scrapple-song2

How could this have slipped through the fine chinois of the Lunch Encounter?

Pork Mush – The Pennsylvania Treat
By Lynn Kerrigan

It’s dictionary defined as “cornmeal mush made with the meat and broth of pork, seasoned with onions, spices and herbs and shaped into loaves for slicing and frying.” The word, scrapple originates from “scrap” or “scrappy” meaning made up of odds and ends for that’s exactly what it is—boiled, ground leftover pig scraps with cornmeal and spices.

After the ham, bacon, chops and other cuts of meat are taken from the butchered pig—what remains are fixings for scrapple—including the meat scraped off the head. Scrapple may contain pork skin, pork heart, pork liver, pork tongue—even pork brains*.

I admit I have a fixation with socially questionable foods, including scrapple, sultz and Spam. Reverse snobbism for odd things porky.

Anyone who knows me knows that…were I to be killed for food…I want ALL of me to be eaten. Please don’t toss away the supposedly icky parts. Scrapple is like that. I mean, what the hell, pig is pig, why is the thigh so much more acceptable than, say, the tongue?

*With all due respect I believe the proper terminology is pig brains.

From Arlington Correspondent I-Do-My-Best-to-Suit-Myself Cindy:

Industrial designer Sung Bae Chang has finally given us mortals the ability to do that which was once considered a bona-fide miracle. Using the “Scan Toaster,” anyone with a PC and a USB cable can burn the likeness of the Blessed Virgin Mary (or any image or text that you wish) onto a slice of bread. The toaster utilizes a network of toasting “modules” — hot wires that rotate within a 30 degree radius — that burn the image or text you have selected onto the delicious slice of your choice. The peripheral is a finalist in a design competition run by the appliance manufacturer Electrolux, so as-of-yet there aren’t any plans to manufacture it on a mass scale. We’re guessing that Mr. Sun Bae Chang probably wants to keep the awesome power of the Scan Toaster for himself anyway.
Joseph L Flatley

Philadelphia’s Amoroso rolls breed Amoroso amore. I started to catch on to this from PhillyGuy, whose mother makes him sandwiches whenever he passes through his hometown.

The Charleston City Paper talks about Amoroso rolls and the expats in South Carolina who are devotees.

I am no role model. While I am filled with amore for this role I would not recommend it anyone. Not as an intentional pursuit, that is. How I got here was pre-intentional living. Parts of it, yes, parts of it I would not give up for, for, for… anything, not even better hair. Parts of it I would recommend not missing while you are on earth.

We are trying – make that I am trying – to be a family (click on this link for Linda Kulman’s insightful words about the fortress of family). My son doesn’t know anything about that and his part is automatic. He has no consciousness of what I think a family should be. Your family is your family is your family. I tell him so and he believes me. As a child you have no intimate basis of comparison and whatever goes on in your house passes for normal. Later on you get to dissect it, find the odd bits, the strange customs, the rubbish, the stuff you want to burn.

I am looking for our life’s natural order. It’s there, if I can just see it, reveal it. Flour, yeast, salt, water. The fundamentals are enough to make something sturdy and lifegiving – bread and rolls. Our fundamentals are there too, if I can just leave them alone long enough to rise.

We are enough. Why? Because I said so. And I am the mom.

Photo by Renee Comet
Styling by Me

The crabcake is just an excuse for bacon, arugula, tomato and mayo. Crabcake BLT. When I cooked at the Tabard Inn in the 80’s the line cooks joked that we could put Grilled Swordfish Steak au Merdre on the menu and still sell out. I believe the same is true of a BLT. Not to dis the crabcake, cause it was delish, but you might not miss it considering the company.

Photo by Renee Comet for Phillips Seafood
Styling by Me

The average American eats 1.8911917 sandwiches per day. I did the math.

The Sandwich Generation in Baltimore Magazine.