Category Archives: Uncategorized

…I can wrap my mind around.

Even CatDog.

Not this though:

Duck Dog – 9
House made duck sausage, spicy mustard, fig relish and shallots

On the menu at Salt, in Baltimore.

Wiggling Piggies

From the outer fringes of sandwich lore…

(Not to reveal too much, but a person could make a sandwich of sliced pork head. Oh ugh. I’m disgusted with myself for typing those words.)

I worship at the feet of Soufside. He is intrepid.

This happened when I was in 3rd grade and my brother was in kindergarten.

My other grandmother made her own Pickled Pigs Feet (speaking of worshipping feet),which are also fairly horrible.
Soufside

Soufside is sitting in, thank the heavens above, cause I am so whupped from work. Now that I have obtained a “Blanket Release For All Soufside Maunderings” (BRFASM) I can post his words and, aaaaah, rest.

We are on a pork jag.

Back to sandwiches. There used to be another place (other than Crown Candy Kitchen in St Louis) near here. They are not related, just had the
same name.

A lot of the Crown’s Candy posters talk about how bad of a neighborhood it is in, well Crown’s Southern Kitchen was much worse. The Crown’s Candy (CC) area was/is mostly junkies and abandoned buildings, Park’s Drug was famous for filling any and all prescriptions (at about triple the going rate.) Have a ‘scrip with “Take 2 Aspirins and call me in the morning” written on it? Well just cross that out and write “lots of morphine” on it (crayon is OK) and they would fill it. Eventually got them closed down, sent to prison, etc…

Anyway, Crown’s Southern Kitchen (CSK) was located on Dr. Martin Luther King Avenue. Chris Rock has a routine about “if you are on a street named after a Black hero, you are in trouble” this was very true about Crown’s. It was also located across the street from a police station, you would think that would make it safe. Well they had a pay-phone on the wall, and, back before the evil cell phone takeover of the world, there would be a steady stream of felons, near-felons and folks who had just escaped custody waiting in line to use it.

They had a great juke box though, lots of gospel music, and on Thursday Pig Ear Sandwiches (Listener Sandwiches).Pig Ears on Wonder Bread with Yellow Mustard – that’s living!! (Well not really – kinda chewy.) There was always a long line for them on Thursday. They made them assembly line style. Lay out some bread, slap some mustard on it, then come by with a big tray of listeners, sometimes there would be 10-15 sandwiches lying there. They look just like pig ears on a piece of bread. Even with all your food skills I don’t think you could make that look appetizing. (Case you don’t know, I’m a food stylist. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind having at a pig’s ear.) Something about a sows’ ear into a silk purse…

(This ear is on Niecie’s in Kansas City, Missouri.)

All the side dishes were cooked with pork, you could get more pork in the greens and black-eyed peas than most places give you as the main dish. All the ladies behind the counter were great, on slow days we would put on some Mighty Clouds of Joy and have a gospel sing-along.

Some fools bought the place, re-modeled and expanded, cut the portion
sizes and killed it.

The Hunting of the Snark

From the source for any wisdom of significance, the Bottle Rockets message board.
(In case you don’t know, the Brox are a Festus/St. Louis rock-n-roll outfit.)

Kirbie:
Ok. I think this is a snark hunt of sorts. I don’t think there is any special ingredients to a Missouri pork chop sandwich–I think it’s just a pork chop raised in Missouri, on bread. They could have just said ‘pork chop sandwich‘ and probably described the product accurately. I have never seen a concessionaire in Missouri displaying any significance to Missouri pork chops: usually around here, concessionaires sell pork tenderloins, fritters, or occasionally bbq pork loin.

In context with Farm Aid though, there is a significance to Missouri pork products, via Patchwork Farms. Patchwork Farms is right up Farm Aid’s alley with their essentially (nearly) organic, non-cruelty raised, environmentally low impact etc. small farm practices. No special sauce, as far as I know. But a Patchwork pork chop really is special and worth the extra money, and it comes from Missouri.

And Kirbie’s previous post:

A pork chop is a chop of pork.

Patchwork Farms is a consortium of high quality pork farmers here in missouri. It is sort of a regional stamp of excellence: high quality feeds, low confinement, low chemical/antibiotic raised oinkers, that sort of thing. We take our pig seriously around here!

RUBBER PORK CHOP

Physics Concept:
Mechanics
Kinematics in Two Dimensions
Motion of the Center of Mass
The demonstration takes about 1 minute to perform.

Description:
The painted white dot shows where the center of mass of the pork chop is. The pork chop is thrown and students observe the parabolic behavior of its center of mass, no matter how the chop is thrown.

There’s a fat fly buzzing me. After dark flies seem so loud. He’s driving me out of my mind and so I am waving the swatter around madly.

Among the concessionaires showcasing local food at this year’s Farm Aid? Patchwork Family Farms featuring Missouri pork chop sandwiches. Pork chop sandwiches? Why yes!

Soufside, native Missourian muses, Hmm, I don’t know anything special about Misery Pork Chop Sandwiches, anybody else? and, viewing the Patchwork Family Farm site, Mostly talk about ham. Mmmm ham. I wonder if they mean pork steaks, rather than pork chops? Is that farm keeping something from us?

Big question mark floating over my head. What the pork is it? Does it have a bone? Is it hot or cold? Mustard or mayo? Further investigation, aka googling, raised more questions. Bigger ones.

Flies seem faster after dark, too. Loop de looping, this one is swift.

What, for example is a “Youth Swine Skillathon”? (Came up in my search.) I missed the Missouri State Fair, where this Missouri Pork Association sponsored event took place, so I may never know. Youth swine? Huh? I can’t help but picture fresh young ham slices sizzling away in a skillet. No further information available on the State Fair site. Scratch head.

OH! Got that crazy fly. Now I can concentrate on more important matters. Like youth swine.

Will report back as the case develops….

meat-o-matic

I know I have been talking and talking and talking about tomatoes and bacon and BLTs, but I just can’t seem to stop worrying this critter. Pretty soon the days’ll get short(er) and a BLT will seem exotic and unattainable again. In the meantime…

From Henry Hong, sandwich expert and Baltimore City Paper contributor:
I hosted a BLT Sunday about a month ago when tomatoes were just getting good. I had an overwhelming craving – you know the feeling. As usual I went a bit overboard and decided that all components must be as close to perfection as possible. Luckily I planned ahead and had already planted tomatoes ha! But I decided to smoke my own bacon as well, but I did not bake the bread because I suck at baking. Anyway they were damn good, real BLT’s. I used green leaf so as not to compete with the texture of the bacon.

Anyway, needless to say, when another contributor to the City Paper carelessly suggested using chevre or cranberry walnut bread to spruce up a BLT, I was filled with rage and disgust!

And while I have bacon on the brain…
WARNING… ain’t-my-kid-cute? story ahead… WARNING
(file under Art Linkletter)
Served lamb chops one night, nice ones.
Mom, is this sheep?
Uh no. Followed by semi-detailed explanation
I don’t want to eat nature, Mom, only pig.

Last year, his first grade year, I was in his classroom fairly regularly to cook with the kids. Bedouin food, for one thing, cause they were studying Bedouins. Bedouin cooking?! Had to look that one up, alright, and then fudge a bit. Big success, some kinda little date, sesame, almond, orange flower water, sweet ball thingys (Tamr Bil Lowz wa SimSim) AND Bedouin sno-cones. Who knew they had so much ice out there in the desert?

Second grade now and this request just came in:
Mom, can you bring in a dead pig and make bacon?

In between a doctor’s appointment and a visit to a friend who is not doing so well, my sister and I stopped for sandwiches at Jettie’s. As many times as I have passed it, I’d never visited. The recommendation given by Sadie S in a casual survey was absolutely accurate. Jettie’s delivers. Big sandwiches, generous, not appalling. Sadie says, I should probably only eat half, but often pig out, eat the whole thing and regret it.

You go to the doctor, and it’s routine, except that going to the doctor is not routine. And they check all your vital signs and, whew, you’ve got em. All vital. So your appetite picks up.

Nice to sit at a picnic table and just eat a sandwich and NOT think about anything scary or bad. You have a friend who is sick and that makes you think. Some things you want to do a lot more slowly. And other things, faster.

The turkey was turkey. You could actually read the anatomy of the slices on your sandwich. How fundamental. How actual. How vital. Havarti, the most buttery cheese, comforting. Not one to upstage turkey. Avocado, buttery too, and slippery. A few red onion slices, very thin, for punch, and, oh yeah, honey-dijon. Usually I like mustard that is not sweet, but that seemed too harsh. Anything else? Yes, lettuce. Wet and crunchy. It was romaine. Iceberg would have been nice too. Iceberg is not a type A.

Ate the whole thing. Not a problem. No regrets.
I’m alive – oh yeah!

Belated post. From late August.

Dance of the Ripe Tomatoes, White Dog Cafe

We wouldn’t have this cardboard tomato problem most likely if tomatoes weren’t such a pretty color. Everybody wants something red on their food. Food is so brown so much of the time.

Food stylist’s dilemma:
Client: Can’t we have something red to garnish?
Food stylist (in her dreams): Uh, no.

How did it get to be August and I haven’t had a BLT yet? SOMETHING must be done about this.

We stopped at a so-called farm stand on the way home from a Delaware beach last weekend and I got suckered again by the tomatoes. They did look too perfect, but I let my personal prejudices do the thinking. Asian people selling Asian produce + tomatoes, watermelon, zucchini – all the summer touchstones – and I think, well, they must have grown these perfect red globes too. Wrong. Of course wrong.

So, no BLT from those tomatoes. Why throw good bacon after bad tomatoes? Those toms sat on the counter for over a week without a speck of discernable change. Then I deep-sixed em.

Lookie here!

Photo by Sam Holden

Unacceptable meatless bites! Ugh. Henry Hong covers the minutiae of the topic – artfully.

It’s a friendly thing, brotherly even, between wine and ‘wiches. A philia. Thank heaven it is attainable and not that tortuous eros thing, defined by desire and longing. Nope, slap something between two slices of bread, poink out that cork and, glub, glub, glub, satisfy your urge.

Last Wednesday, the 22nd – or was it the Wednesday before? – Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg‘s WINE column in the Washington Post food section suggested a wine pairing for Vietnamse banh mi sandwiches. Speaking of quenching desire, Ms. Page and Mr. Dorenburg write, “wines with a hint of sugar can help tame the flames.” See what I mean? Squirt on some hot sauce and then mitigate it with cool, sweet, viscous liquid.

The wine of choice for a banh mi stuffed with duck pate, “which, like foie gras, suggests a sweet wine”? The 2006 Quady Electra orange muscat ($13). A “delightful match….whose ripe peach flavor and light-bodied effervescence we’ve enjoyed only as a dessert wine until now.” Sounds like a love match to me.

My lunch encounter with banh mi is here. Love drinking wine off the hood of my car.