Category Archives: Uncategorized

From Itinerant Toronto Correspondent Nick:

There are few sandwiches that inspire me to engage in a negotiation with time and space involving a 200 km inter-provincial drive, followed by an inescapable lengthy wait in a queue before finally coming into physical contact with the object of desire.  The smoked meat sandwiches at Schwartz’s Deli in Montreal, Quebec inspire such loyalty and devotion.  I speak as someone who has not only negotiated this relationship on numerous occasions, but who has also encouraged others to do the same on their own volition.

The Schwartz smoked meat sandwich seems to be basic on first sight: a heaping stack of sliced smoked meat barely contained between two pieces of rye bread that are lathered with plain yellow mustard. But the sandwich’s humble appearance is as deceptive as the deli that houses it.  Take a closer look and one will notice the fine distinctions that make this sandwich the crucial centerpiece of a larger dining experience.

When ordering a sandwich, diners have the option of three cuts of smoked meat: lean, regular, and fat.  True gourmands know that there really is no choice – the fat cut offers generous portions of gelatinous trimmings that explode on contact with your canines, offering the unique Schwartz flavor that mixes the saltiness of its herbs and spices with the smokiness of the meat juices.  The regular and lean cuts progressively subtract this layer of flavor from the meat, leaving a denser though somewhat drier texture to chew on.  Though there are clear health advantages to these latter cuts with respect to the clogging of one’s arteries, the reduction of the full impact of the taste explosion that is associated with the fat cut negates any of those hygienic concerns. (For the truly brave, there is an “extra-fat” cut that is off the menu but can be ordered. It is a natural extension of its fraternal cut, and the taste is literally heart-stopping.)

The crust of the rye bread gives shape to the sandwich, which is as big as the palm of one’s hand.  The sandwich comes served bisected in two, and it is clear that the sweet spot lies in the mid-section of each half, where the meat glistens brightest in its thick juiciness.  Biting into that sweet spot is a sacred event, usually delayed by connoisseurs in time for the moment juste when there are no more edges to nibble.  After the teeth sink into the smoked meat, the mouth chews for several cycles to break down the flesh before letting out a pleasurable and affirmative sigh of contentment just as the precious pepper-corned juices of the meat infiltrate the taste glands.  This sigh is echoed throughout the deli at different intervals by complete strangers who are forced to sit next to each other as they ultimately unite in a chorus of approval for this shared experience.

A Schwartz smoked meat sandwich is typically complemented with a big sour pickle, French fries, and a carbonated drink (Coke and Black Cherry Cott are stocked in abundance).  It is a fine meal at any time of the day, and one that is totally unique. I’ve eaten at other establishments that claim to offer smoked meat (or even worse, Montreal Smoked Meat) and I’ve been consistently disappointed at the pastrami and corned beef that ends up on my plate.  If I want smoked meat, I go to Schwartz’s.  Anything else just doesn’t make the (fat) cut.  

Schwartz’s Hebrew Delicatessen: The Story
By Bill Brownstein

“When you’re in Montreal, you must go to Schwartz’s”–New York Times

“The best place in the Milky Way to sample smoked meat sandwiches!”–Time Magazine

“A Beef on Rye to Freeze to Death for”–Financial Times of London

Patron Saint of Sandwiches*, he is.

Warren Zevon is not quite six degrees away, more like five. I can imagine him in my living room, enjoying a something or ruther.

The Late Show With David Letterman
Don’t miss The Late Show with David Letterman on CBS tonight, Friday, September 5 at 11:30 pm ET/PT when Dave welcomes Steve Earle as his featured musical guest. On this broadcast Steve will pay tribute to Warren Zevon with a performance of “Reconsider Me”, a song by the musical legend, who passed away almost exactly five years ago to the day.

Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That’s why it’s called the PRESENT.

Forgive me Warren, for I have cliched.

*Enjoy Every Sandwich: Songs of Warren Zevon is a tribute released in 2004 to the late Warren Zevon.

The album’s title comes from an interview Zevon did on The Late Show with David Letterman following Zevon’s having been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Letterman asked Zevon if there was anything he understood now, facing his own mortality, that he didn’t before. Zevon replied, “Just how much you’re supposed to enjoy every sandwich.”

(Forgive me readers for I have borrowed from an unconfirmed source.)

This just in from Dry-Witted Correspondent John in Green Bay:

(Dry wit is one thing, dry cilantro, ick. I don’t think any self-respecting cowpoke would touch cilantro dry or otherwise. Don’t cowpokes roam? Wouldn’t cilantro be for an agrarian?)

Cowpoke Sandwich
1 large onion, sliced thick
Dried cilantro
Dried oregano
Water
Vinegar
Bread
Butter

Put onion slices in a bowl. Coat with spices and then cover with water and vinegar mixture. Refrigerate for 8 to 10 hours. Place onion slices between pieces of buttered bread.

Probably the onion would wilt. I take that back. The onion would wilt. And the herbs would plump. The juice would soak into the bread (so it don’t drip on yer saddle). I could eat one. Or two. Particularly with horse in smell-o-rama.

 
First you take an onion. Add bread and butter. If that looks like a sandwich to you, you must be wearin’ spurs. And chaps.

Want to know why half sours have never been so sweet?!
With valet bike parking no less. (Get yer hands OFF my bike!)

The pickle people want to know, just what IS your relationship to the pickling industry? The statutes of sandwich set industry standards for pickle appropriate accompaniment. My relationship is driven purely by instinct. There is Twangfest and there is Twang fest. Forever the two shall/should meet. Put them together and get me in a pickle. Pickled. Then please, I beg you, put me in a jar with a tight-fitting lid.

Giving your heart away is good. No matter how big it is and how much you give, or for how little, you get to keep it, too. Hold tight to your presence of mind. Only then can you have your heart and give it away too.

I put my whole heart into everything with you, but what you’re doing next, I do not have a clue.
The Bottle Rockets, “Mountain to Climb”

(More very, very hip shots here from Bob at Undertow.)

The Bottle Rockets have recorded a new record (!) in Brooklyn with Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, producing and “enabling the Bottle Rockets in their pursuit of the rock and roll.”

Here are lots of pictures of the Bottle Rockets in Brooklyn ostensibly absorbed in the creating of a new record (a new record!), but more likely thinking, “What’s for lunch?” Lunch is paramount. It’s why I work all morning. Am I alone in that?

In case you don’t know, I have Bottle Rockets Fever, with the mercury bursting out of the top of the thermometer. The cure, I imagine, is far worse than the disease. The Bottle Rockets, at least some of them, have Bacon Fever, for which there is no cure. An elixir was developed but it did very poorly at the pharmacy. Who in their right mind would want to recover from Bacon Fever?

Bacon is a sandwich cornerstone and Brooklyn does right by a sandwich. I asked Brian Henneman what they had to eat while in the studio for a week.

Me: What I want to know is…. Did yall encounter any noteworthy sandwiches while in NY?

Brian: The Torta El Diablo, from the Buffalo Cantina was a recurring favorite. Found a gourmet Cuban Sandwich by Mark Spencer’s place. Had that more than once. Anything from the Hope Deli, with “fancy lettuce” was quite popular too. The Polish girls made a nice sandwich-ah…

Me: Good to know you were properly sustained.

Brian: I sustained 10 pounds of extra weight, from all the friggin’ excellent sandwiches.

Me: That’s whatcha call “eating your sandwich and having it too.”

While I’m thinking about giving it away and keeping it too, my mind wends to DOGS.

I can’t love you enough. You soak up all of my stuff.
You’re just a sponge to my mush. I can’t love you enough.
“It’s The Way You Smell”

From my mouth to my dog’s ear. The more you give to them, the more you get. Too much sometimes. It will take you over, overwhelm your heart.

The thing about a dog is, the thing, the thing is, you can love them as much as you want, pour it on thick like refrigerated Aunt Jemima. All that love, it will not overflow into the gutter and stream down past your neighbor’s place. The dog will absorb it. And your heart aches pleasurably as it turns dog-nectar into love-syrup.

I cook for my dog now. If I don’t, she won’t eat, and I can’t bear it. She does like a sandwich – linear, rather than vertical. First some toast, then some chicken. Condiments are beneath her. She is not supposed to have butter, but at 105 what’s the harm in a little butter? Nicely melting into the crumb.

Fifteen and then some is old for a dog, judging from my vast knowledge of these things. She’s my first dog and so I have not experienced accelerating age before. A dog, if you are not too terribly old yourself, will pass you by. First she was my baby and now she is my grandma. It’s a time/heart warp. I carry her sometimes, on stairs, and easier and easier that has become as she goes from lean, to slim, to thin, to frail. If it’s the last thing I do for her, I will plump her up. 

Oh to be covered in fur. Fur carries beauty until you are as old as the hills, and beyond.

There will be an answer. Letter B.

At the farmer’s market we bought bun bread. Bun bread? Dunno either, but it made for a tasty BLT. Quizzing the bread man for the third time on the bun bread’s sweetness factor, he grabbed a knife in exasperation and hacked away at a loaf. Poor loaf. “Taste it, taste it,” he begged. Well, it did taste a little on the sweet side for a BLT, but I bought a loaf and skidaddled, cowed. Cowed by karma. Poor loaf.

The bacon came from the market too and the nice organic meat man let me trade a velvety, wrinkled dollar bill for a shiny gold dollar coin to take home to my kid. Cost me extra for the bacon. Seven bucks. Burned about $2.53’s worth in the first batch. It’s not wise to walk away from sizzling bacon.

Ever so slightly sweet, toasted Arnold’s thin-slice is perfect buttered for caviar.

Bread/butter/caviar
= softly-sweet/dairy-rich/lifeforce-salty
= Bread/mayo/bacon.
The formula balances. Get my drift? Bun bread BLT’s = summer Sunday supper.

When I had a hockey playing boyfriend he took me to games. He liked having me there next to him, but did not want me shouting. He did not want me shouting, “Put that bun in the oven!!” Bun in the oven, biscuit in the basket, muffins in a bundle, knickers in a twist. Whatever, right? It’s the exuberance that counts. Kinky Friedman says, “Get your biscuits in the oven and your pucks in the bed.” (Or something like that.) Hockey’s not big in Texas, but the biscuits are. Buns too.

The Bunn-O-Matic will no longer do, will it? Oh no, now we have to have good coffee. When I was a waitress the orange-handled-carafe kind was just fine. Everyone needs a bunn-o-matic. Bring me a bunn, please. Made just for me. Fresh and warm. With fine bunnaroma.

anything not organic would require a label. Food would be food. Nourishment, taste. You know, food.

All that other stuff, the unfood, would be stamped like this:

Not subtle. A nice quick visual read. To the point.

or·gan·ic [awr-gan-ik] – adjective
1.Noting or pertaining to a class of chemical compounds that formerly comprised only those existing in or derived from plants or animals, but that now includes all other compounds of carbon.

How could something so essential change? Forgive me for being such a dinosaur, but when did the world of organisms start taking on new members? Did an elected official, representing a majority of the populace, make this decision? Well, come to think of it, my world is organic too, and we are welcoming new members. We are universalists.

Did some work for Greensbury Market recently – their site just launched – and I’m proud of the images. Take a look and take a shop. Greensbury is loaded for bear, should you be an omnivore. (BYOB – bring your own bread.)

The homework wars have started – three weeks ago – and I am letting loose of my last thread of summer vacation. Raising just one single child can deflate a person, so I hang onto threads of glory. Summer trips are woven of especially strong fiber.

We were in Wisconsin. If there is a place less exotic I cannot name it. We like it like that. Mickie’s Dairy Bar is in Madison, 100 miles south of, and world’s apart from, Appleton, where I was born and spent my first nine years.

When I was a collegiate dilettante in Madison I could never get enough to eat. Teen metabolism is a miracle. Mickie’s malts were a mainstay (morning-after medicine) and they taste just as good now. The burger buns have improved – immensely. Homemade now, slightly sweet and tender, with a dairy-state butter burnished top, they are the perfect burger envelope. We were not unhappy with the potato salad either.

Meal times in Wisconsin can be brain stumpers. Do you have room for a sandwich before that dessert?? The dessert part was a given.

The gateway to Door County, Sturgeon Bay, is a short ways up Wisconsin’s “thumb” and home to Perry’s Cherry Diner, where they do make excellent pie. I’m suspicious of pie in public places – have to inspect it closely from all angles, smell it, and poke at the crust a bit before venturing a taste. Ate it all up at Perry’s, same as the last 10 years.

“North of the tension line” is Washington Island, remote, windswept, bright and beautiful.

A snappy, mustard-dressed brat to wet my whistle for the…

ice cream! At the Albatross, a 32-year-old drive in on Washington Island.

About bringing up a boy, I’ve said this before and now I’ll say it again (these are not my words, alas): The hours are interminable and the years evaporate. An hour spent with a third-grader in front of a mess ‘o homework is in-effing-terminable. The homework itself is not the obstruction. It’s the getting to, sitting down with, finding the pencil, remembering the assignment, messing around, fidgeting, resisting, objecting, daydreaming, mom mom momming, that drains me dry. I believe the same is true for much of daily life. Resisting compounds the difficulty.

And now back to ranting about the Olympic athletes promoting McDonald’s. Try explaining that to an 8-year-old.

From Richard “Words Fail Me and Drawing’s Too Hard” Thompson

“And that bologna rind. Blah,” says Mike Rhode.

Coincidentally, I stopped by Mike Rhode’s today and who should appear but Richard Thompson! With his new book, Cul de Sac! He doesn’t look a thing like this guy in the strip, other than being a guy, a skinny guy.

Richard says all the restaurants at the beach serve either pancakes or seafood. I believe it. Do YOU like pancakes that much? I don’t. Does anyone? What gives with all the pancake joints?

Standing around chatting in the sunshine, mulling over the pancake/seafood combo, a weird meal from the past sprang to mind. There is a seafood spot on Ocracoke Island, the Pelican, a place we’ve been many times for ever-so-slightly Southern style cooking, including hush puppies.

Tuesday nights the Pelican used to have a special sushi menu. Wellll….went with a crowd, humans of all ages and gastronomic persuasion. Had a feast of….sushi and hush puppies! It was wonderfully odd. Shush puppies.

Toast Magnet!

This sand toaster was more firm and vertical before I dashed across the street for my camera. Waves or no waves, water erodes wet sand faster than you can say cinnamon sugar! It sure is cute though, and a swanky beach construction concept sparked by a bit of plywood “toast”.

I swear to the-bread-which-is-god, this is the (next to last) summer post featuring the face of my son. Vacation is over, alas, and I have just one final batch of snaps. We did a Wisconsin swing, not sandwich-centric but not without it’s bread-loaded high points. Stay tuned. On the edge of your seat, I’m sure, nails bitten to the quick. Ha.