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I’m going up the country, baby, don’t you wanna go
I’m going up the country, baby, don’t you wanna go
I’m going to some place where I’ve never been before

The Locke Modern Country Store was written up in the Washington Post recently and I read the story with great longing. Longing to take a ride out to the country on an Indian summer’s day and longing to have a general store of my own.

A great friend arrived from the land of gentle seasonal shift, Los Angelos, giving me the nudge I needed to drive west, where leaf-peeping precedes us by a week or so. Peak is still a ways off and while the orchestra of trees was just warming up, the top swaths of orange or occasional red flights of fancy were plenty. Maples are in the lead, as usual.

We got unlucky and lucky. I didn’t do my research and, whoops, the store, our lunch destination 65 miles out, was closed. On the stoop there stood a waist high single burner with an enormous pot steaming like mad. Somebody had to be home.

We begged (okay I begged). She led us through the kitchen, packed us lunch and sent us across to the meadow by the millstream. Paradise. No exaggeration. Meadow and millstream. And picnic tables. Paradise.

I’m going, I’m going where the water tastes like wine
I’m going where the water tastes like wine
We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time

The Locke store makes a wonderful Turkey BLT. Himself was not happy about the lettuce and avocado. Extra for me! The bread was cushiony and slightly sweet, like limpa. Nice with salty country bacon. Jenn was not sure why I felt we needed three bags of Route 11 chips. She was right. One should always consult with Jenn before any undertaking. Believe me.

Route 11 Chips are grown and fried right out there in Virginia by the lovely folks who own the Tabard Inn in downtown DC. I know cause they first started slicing and frying on their farm when I was a chef at the Tabard about 20 years ago. Lord, I have eaten my share of Tabard chips. One morning I will wake up and every chip I should not have eaten will have materialized on my body.

I’m gonna leave this city, got to get away
I’m gonna leave this city, got to get away
All this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure can’t stay

A rushing stream, loads of hard, green things, and a stick. Things from a tree that fell with a clump. They floated and were perfect for races. We could have left the boy there for days and our absence would have gone unnoticed.

Okay, I admit it, this post is just one big brag. We did have a great day out and I do think my son is the most amazing thing since sliced bread. And Jenn, well, every man who meets her is in love with her. There, I said it. And I’m not taking it back.

“Hold my stick, mom.” Did he take the picture? Who can tell? Waving the camera around, jumping up and down, crouching, smirking…

Whew. That was a close one. We would have gone hungry out there on the edge of the tundra. Next time you’re in Millwood, don’t make it a Monday.

I’m going up the country, baby, don’t you wanna go
I’m going up the country, baby, don’t you wanna go
I’m going to some place where I’ve never been before
Canned Heat

Just one more compelling reason to get your sandwich eating self to St Louis, the St Paul Sandwich. I am especially curious about the history of the St Paul sandwich. I wonder, does it have anything to do with Chinese railroad workers? I would say, after doing a tiny bit of research, yes. In 2007 there were 700 Chinese restaurants in St Louis. That would point, one would reason, to a long history of Chinese-American culture.

When you sit in Busch Stadium watching St. Louis Cardinals games, you may never imagine this location was once China Town. The first wave of Chinese came to St. Louis in 1869 when many of them lost their jobs as railroad construction workers. At the peak period, the Mid-Pacific Railroad Company hired over 10,000 Chinese laborers. When the westward railroad construction was completed, many became unemployed. Many of them chose to come to St. Louis that was then the 4th largest city in the US.

The Splendid Table Talks St Paul Sandwich
The St. Paul Sandwich
You Won’t Find in St. Paul
October 16, 1999

The St. Paul Sandwich is a culinary curiosity that has nothing to do with St. Paul, Minnesota. This quite wonderful specialty of St. Louis, Missouri, consists of egg foo yung on Wonder Bread, served up with lettuce, tomato and mayo. You’ll find a good one at Chinese Express.

Chinese Express
1230 Hampton Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63139
314-645-7014

Photo by Bill Keaggy

The St. Paul sandwich though, THAT’S the shit.
It’s a variation on the food Albert King used to request in his performance rider, which was…
A whole order of chicken chow mein, and one loaf of white bread.
Chinese food and white bread is an awesome combination.
I wouldn’t be one bit surprised to find out the St. Paul sandwich originated from the cross pollination of African American culture, and the plethora of local Chinese restaurants… I love me a St. Paul sandwich!
Gotta “eat in”, don’t “take out”.
The white bread turns to mush, if it travels more than 10 minutes.
Brian

Is this a great country or what? That sandwich is pretty high.
Dayton Andrews
(Oh sure, WHAT the heck. I LOOOOVE the name Dayton Andrews.)

And, my last thought for the day on this pressing topic is: Why in the name of Peter is it called a St Paul?

Photo by Dan Whipps Styling by Moi

This local operation, Roseda Beef, ages their beef and offers real meat. Meat that will make you forgot this is 2008, an advanced era of phony food. Roseda Beef is what you would eat were you to grow and nurture your own. Get me a mini-cow!

If I could look out my urb-sub-urb window and see chickens pecking at the base of the three story, three-color-sided Monstrous House Thingy that is my neighbor, I might feel a bit more at peace with the world. Were there a mini cow beside my black-and-white, cow-like mini dog I might feel a mini-bit more at peace with the world and with myself.

Yeehaw I finally made it to St Louis!

Reliable source, the Bottle Rockets message board hooked me up with the St Louis sandwich train.
Many say the best sandwich in St. Louis is the Amighetti’s Special, served with pride on The Hill (formerly Dago Hill), the old Italian neighborhood where baseball legends Joe Garagiola and Yogi Berra grew up.
lightnin

The neighborhood lay-out of St Louis took me by surprise because the town sprawls, distinct neighborhoods separated by long stretches of low-slung, unsigned buildings, freeways and seemingly unoccupied space. The Hill was like a little town of its own, randomly dotted with restaurants, markets and other small businesses, punctuating sentences of exceedingly tidy single or two-story homes.

So nicely wrapped, tight like a papoose.

I can’t say for 100% sure that this sandwich was the best on The Hill, not without further research, but I can say a) I wouldn’t doubt it and b) it was well worth the trip, including the interminable red light separating us from the ‘hood. According to what I read, it is Amighetti’s sauce that sets this sub apart. I have no reason to doubt the claims. The sauce was delicious and it seeped down my arms.

Speaking of well-known Italian Americans, we owe the quotation “all men are created equal”, arguably the best-known phrase in any of America’s political documents, to Phillip Mazzei, Thomas Jefferson’s friend and neighbor. Were all sandwiches created equal, my quest would end. The search gives a person a reason to strive, to think, to try, to look around the next corner with more curiosity than fear.

These Cuban Cristo Minis are tiny curtsies to Cuban-French fusion. When the MacKenzie catalog showed up on my doorstep today I thought, Oh, that food is pretty. Cha-cha-chá!

Photo by Dean Alexander. Styling by Yours Truly

Richmond and its inhabitants are so civilized. All these years as a stylist, more than 20, and the ONLY folks I know who go out to lunch during a shoot are Richmonders. Shhhhhhh. Please don’t let them know that this is the anxious, dog-eat-dog, time-is-money 21st century. Shush now. We deserve an occasional island of cordiality.

Jeff Saxman of Jeff Saxman Photography
A meatloaf burger. Brilliant! Or meat loafburger.

I could not bring myself to order a BLAT. It sounds like an exclamation one might use to describe the effects of stuffing yourself with hot Krispy Kremes round 2 am after a night of drinking bourbon on the rocks.

The National Museum of American History honors lunch with this featured object, the Jetson’s Lunch Box.

American notions of family life in the 1960s traveled effortlessly outward to interplanetary space on this fanciful box.

Perhaps on the box. Not in sixties unreal real life.

Is there chicken and stars in that thermos? The tiny stars with center pinholes. Stars do have holes. You send a wish and it may stick, or it may pass through, like a camel through the eye of a needle. That camel, squeezing through that itty bitty hole, is more likely than the wish sticking. Go with the odds. Wish early. Wish often.

St. Louis Blues

W. C. Handy, Louis Armstrong

I hate to see that evening sun go down
I hate to see that evening sun go down
‘Cause, my baby, he’s gone left this town

Blues City Deli in St Louis is on a perfect Benton Park corner and that joint’s got a groove on. In the pocket. Spent more than the allotted share of my 40 hours tipping back a root beer and tapping my toes at this super sandwich hotbed.

As I mentioned in an earlier post about St Louis, I checked my reliable source, the Bottle Rockets message board, for requisite sites, spots, dives and joints. My inbox filled with a weeks worth of eating. Excruciating editing for my 40 hours.

Hey Snack…a couple suggestions..try to make it down to Blues City Deli (best sandwich in the city). I recomend the Benton Park Poorboy or the Chicken Shack Ranch…St. Louis Blues History all over the walls and the owner Vince is an ex-muscian but more importantly..a hell of a guy..Mention your blog to him he will be grateful..Vinnie is a great guy….
Muddy Waters
That Vincent is a doll and a half, and running this sandwich show apparently runs in his blood. The man is clearly very generous, generally speaking, and generous with that impish smile as well.
Muddy recommended the Benton Park Poorboy or the Chicken Shack Ranch. Whaddya mean “or” Muddy? How bout both?? With a sassy Sioux City Sarsaparilla. The drink cooler was bustin’ with righteous pops.

Feelin’ tomorrow like I feel today
If I’m feelin’ tomorrow like I feel today
I’ll pack my truck and make my give-a-way

St. Louis woman with her diamond ring
Pulls that man around by her
If it wasn’t for her and her
That man I love would have gone nowhere, nowhere

And there is live music. During the daylight hours! Oh to have this place at the corner of 6th and Monroe in NoVA (that would be almost next door) so I could walk down every Thursday night with my kid for live music and a sandwich supper.

I got the St. Louis Blues
Blues as I can be
That man’s got a heart like a rock cast in the sea
Or else he wouldn’t have gone so far from me

I love my baby like a school boy loves his pie
Like a Kentucky colonel loves his mint’n rye
I love my man till the day I die

Got home, none the worse for wear. Hastily scrounged the edges of my bag for this souvenir, a gift from the the St Louis sandwich man himself. Had to wear it. Not only none the worse, I was much the better for wearing it.

Stamping along in our sneakers during the twelve lit hours of the fall equinox, we came upon this toothpick of the giants.

Toothpicks are filling my brain. They seem to have appeared serendipitiously in many guises and sizes. The thought of quills got the birds careening around in there. A bird house is being built, pick by pick, in my subconscious.

Le Negri, a sterilized peacock quill is the toothpick of choice for two giants in my world, James Farber and Eric “Roscoe” Ambel. Late last winter we squeezed sideways into Katz’s in the great empire state for pastrami.

The boys worked the sterilized peacock quill toothpicks while we waited for the check. On the other side of the table the fairer sex checked lipstick and smoothed skirts.

Research the picks of choice at Le Negri. A packet in your wallet will have you ducking under velvet ropes in no time.

A fascinating little object, n’est ce pas?

Should you be at lunch overseas with a tumbling Le Sandwich Club or in need of a little post-lunch dental hygiene the following translations from James will aid you:

Italian: Stuzzicadenti (my favorite) (stoot-see-ka-DEN-tee)
Spanish: Palillo (pah-LEE-oh)
French: Cure-Dent (CURE-a-dont)
Dutch: Tandenstoker
Japanese: Yogi (YO-gee)
Hebrew: Kassem (kas-SEM)

Not sure of the exact spelling of any of the above (pronunciation in parentheses).
Signed,
MSM in NYC (You are on your own with Dutch.)

My main sandwich man in NYC is working overtime this week. I’ll be peeling the cabbage to make it up to him next time we convene.

Jeffrey Steingarten wrote this book and I can’t praise it enough.

Washington Toothpick
See this in your rearview mirror while biking along the edge of west coast Route 1? Head for the ditch or you will be looking for toothpick-size pieces of yourself on the blacktop.

Dixie Chick Katie did her bit for the economy by buying me a gift. What would we do without refrigerator magnets (or without Katie?!)? And refrigerators to stick them on? At our house the fridge is our gravitational center. Fwoooop, we are pulled towards it day and night, arms outstretched.

Gravity. Not just a good idea. It’s the law.