Category Archives: Uncategorized

Jillian Clarke was recognized recently by the Annals of Improbable Research for her groundbreaking experiments debunking the Five-Second Rule. According to Ms. Clarke’s research, a piece of food dropped and then left to lie on the floor (or other probably dirty surface) for 5 seconds can collect a heck of a lot of bacteria, say perhaps a number between 150 and 8000. That’s enough to make you real sick. The experiments were conducted with slices of bologna
and with slices of bread.

Okay, this did make me think because I am likely to eat something that I have dropped, provided I dropped it on my own kitchen floor and not the floor of the bus station or ball park. When making that split second decision, to eat or not to eat, several judgements come into play. Ms. Clarke discusses two of the three factors I consider critical: the relative filth of the surface and the contact duration.

That said, what about the stickiness factor, as in, how sticky is the food? If you drop a wet lollipop you throw it away, right? There is no blowing off the dog fur, sand and crumbs, let alone the salmonella. On the other hand, something nice and dry, a chip or cracker for example, seems perfectly palatable after a good bloosh of air on both sides, no?

What I’m getting at is this, if I drop my bologna I hope it’s between two slices of nice bread and stuck tightly with mayo or mustard. Then I plan to pick it up, blow it off and eat it. That is unless I dropped it in the ladies lounge.

Harold McGee, famous food scientist, writes in detail about bologna, bread and bacteria in a story entitled The Five-Second Rule Explored, Or How Dirty Is That Bologna published May 9, 2007 in the New York Times. Read Mr. McGee’s full story here.

This is an Atkins approved sandwich. Personally, I need the bread…buttered.

Clamp at the bottom. Nice touch. That’s how it’s done. Fork’s not straight either. Course that was all fixed in post production. Those photoshop guys can do anything. What do they need me for??
Photography by Michael Pohuski
Foodstyling by Lisa Cherkasky

Caribbean Grill Cuban sandwich

I’ve been craving Cuban sandwiches since I saw Alton Brown deconstruct one on the Food Network. The Caribbean Grill offers one as well as several interesting side dishes, like baked plantains and black bean soup with chorizo. I was able to satisfy my craving. The sandwich was delicious. I was disappointed, though, that they didn’t have the black bean soup or the baked plantains. I opted for the fried. I need to go back. Now I have acraving for black bean soup. I like the Caribbean Grill. It’s nice lunch option in Arlington. Nicer if all menu selections are available.

Banjo Playin Ken

says Melissa Clark in a recent NYTimes story exulting the grilled cheese. Who knows better how to mother you than yourself? Who knows better what you need and when? A coupla bucks? A kind word? A butter-crisped, cheese-oozing, lip-greasing grilled cheese? Yes! Yes! Yes!

Photo by Taran Z Foodstyling by Lisa Cherkasky

I ate a lot of grilled cheese at Spudnut’s in Madison, WI while I was a so-called student. Plain. Just bread, white and thin, flattened from the butter- soak and flat-top toasting, and cheese, orange and velvety. A thin, faintly reddish, winter Wisconsin tomato slice was good sometimes.

Now my son eats a lot of them and we use a designated grilled cheese maker that imprints an American flag on the bread. What’s the connection? I have no idea. Got it free from work. And it works. The sandwich goes inside this flat grilly thing that has a hinged lid and you can flip it, flip it often if you like, and vigilantly monitor the browning of the bread. Almost as much fun as toasting a marshmallow perfectly.

Photo by Taran Z Foodstyling by Lisa Cherkasky

Why do kids like grilled cheese so much? Who knows. I do know my kid would never eat the one above. Too much going on.

Melissa Clark likes a sophisticated grilled cheese and I do too. Stinky cheese, bread with big holes that you have to actually chew, condiments that have made their way to the far reaches of your fridge. Looking to expand your grilled cheese horizons? Look here and she can help you make sandwiches for grown-ups, sandwiches that need these words to describe them: brittle, lacy, smear, tangy, tantalizing, pungent and bracing.

Photo by Taran Z Foodstyling by Lisa Cherkasky
This is very fancy. Something you might make for your mother to show her you are an actual adult. Something for brunch, that non-meal.

And then, when you need a bit of mothering…regular white bread – okay, it can be decent, cheddar – okay, it can be white and sharp, and butter, lots of it. Use a mess ‘o paper napkins and eat it in the kitchen.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Did you ever dip pickle spears in Kool-Aid mix? Not me, my childhood was deprived. We only had pickles that were green and that was okay. Better than okay. I love pickles. Down south, in the pickle mecca of Greenville, Mississippi something called Kool-Aid Dills are blazing a rainbow trail.

Anything that rivals “dipping hot Cheetos in ice cream” has got to be good and I’m going to find out.

Grocery list:
Dill pickles
Kool-Aid, red
Cheetos
Ice cream, vanilla

Meant to make this post late last week, then got slammed with work and sandwiches flew out of my brain. Capped off a long week by making a 3-D cake for my son’s 7th birthday. You have not lived until you have made a Pikachu cake. Wait until after midnight the night before to optimize the pleasure. The request was for Pikachu running and, tell you what, I tried. That boy could get me to do anything by pretending to believe I can do anything. Wrapped around his little finger? You betcha.

So, the cake is firming up in the fridge – needs a lot of firming seeing as it is nine-tenths icing (with toothpicks making up the lion’s share of the remainder) – and I’m thinking about sandwiches again. Worked with a Cuban man today who waxed poetic on Cuban wiches and he got me back on track. Priorities!

Here goes, my belated post:

The $3 trip to Vietnam. Okay, Little Vietnam, the Eden Center in Falls Church, VA. Specifically Song Que.

This time I had the Grilled Pork – Banh Mi Heo Nuong. Same crunchy garnishes: slivered cucumber, white onion and pickled daikon, sliced jalapeno and cilantro branch, the bread smeared with something that must have had Dijon mustard in it going by taste and color. The meat. Oh the meat. Little gnarled chunks of sweet caramelized pork, burnished and satisfyingly chewy.

This shop is a festive, indoor carnival, with color-my-world displays from floor to ceiling. Most of the packaged food is a mystery to me, a mystery to unravel visit by visit. Cellophane pulled tightly over what I know is food, but cannot identify. Stay tuned. Or tune me in if you are in the know.

Mangos. Got that much.

Sitting around yesterday on a neighbors back deck we (middle-aged parents) started the game of who-used-to-be-coolest. Who saw the most famous band in the smallest venue? Who saw their first concert at the youngest age? Who got into clubs at age 15? And so on. You get my drift.

While a winner was never established there were a number of high rollers. One story that could not be topped was that of the B-52’s playing a dance at a local high school, climaxing with the band’s destruction of the student’s lovingly crafted 10-foot papier mache rock lobster.

That brought The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to mind as crayfish, ubiquitous at the fest, are sometimes called rock lobsters. This very weekend – and next – crowds of lucky festgoers are scarfing up crawfish by the fistfull as they have at this time of the year since 1970. I do believe that once you have been to Jazzfest it never leaves your system. The sounds and smells are easily conjured for ever after.

Speaking of good smells. Speaking of eating crawfish. Speaking of rock lobsters. Did someone say LOBSTERS?

While streaming lobsters of consciousness, my mind bumped into lobster rolls. If Jazzfest is in full swing down south, lobster roll season must be just around the corner up north, say in Maine. Now there’s an iconic sandwich, one about which northeasterners bear strong opinions.

To my knowledge, and this is definitely not my purview, there are only three necessary ingredients in a lobster roll: lobster meat, mayonnaise and a toasted hotdog bun, the kind that looks like a slice from a very short loaf of bread. A New England-style bun. The opening of the bun faces UP and is stuffed with lobster meat coated nicely with mayonnaise. Bits of celery are allowable in there as well.

There is a recipe on the Food Network site that includes parsley (flat leaf no less), lemon juice, chives and basil. Oh brother. Even to this mid-westerner turned pseudo southerner, I know that is just WRONG. Salt and pepper are okay with me, probably even good, but I find the specifications – kosher and freshly ground – annoying.

On the other hand, and for full disclosures sake, one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten was a lobster roll homemade in Massachusetts by my friend Marie. The secret ingredient? Truffle oil. Just to balance the scales she served onion rings as well. Homemade they were and perfectly plain. Key word, perfectly. As I recall, she did not include flat leaf parsley. Phew.

4:17 AM, April 27, 1758
According to Woody Allen, the groundbreaking invention of the sandwich took place on this day and is credited to the Earl of Sandwich.

Read on for more details from Mr. Allen’s research.

Excerpted from Woody Allen’s Yes, But Can the Steam Engine Do This? a short story in a collection titled Getting Even (1971):

I was leafing through a magazine…
when I came across a sentence at the bottom of the page…
“The sandwich,” it read, “was invented by the Earl of Sandwich.”…
My mind whirled as it began to conjure with the immense dreams, the hopes and obstacles, that must have gone into the invention of the first sandwich.

I spent the ensuing three months working up a brief biography of its great inventor, his nibs the Earl. Though my grasp of history is a bit shaky, and though my capacity for romanticizing easily dwarfs that of the average acidhead, I hope I have captured at least the essence of this unappreciated genius.

That said, take the following with a large pinch of salt:

1758
…finally – at 4:17 A.M., April 27, 1758 – he creates a work consisting of several strips of ham enclosed, top and bottom, by two slices of rye bread. In a burst of inspiration, he garnishes the work with mustard.

1778
Later that year, his open hot roast-beef sandwich creates a scandal with its frankness.

1790
He supervises… the construction of a hero sandwich by a group of talented followers. Its unveiling in Italy causes a riot, and it remains misunderstood by all but a few critics.

1792
He succumbs in his sleep.
At his funeral, the great German poet Holderlin sums up his (the Earl of Sandwich) achievements with undisguised reverence:
“He freed mankind from the hot lunch. We owe him so much.”

Now that’s what I all a sub! The Italian Store in Arlington VA never fails to deliver (if you pick it up). Recent posts have included several rants against chains, several of which sell subs. Here is my antidote – hard roll, sweet AND hot peppers, prosciutto, capacola, Genoa and provolone, aka The Capri.

I know this photo is horrible, but I like it anyway. Love the individual ceramic “skillet”. This looks to be about as far as you can get on the continuum from a sandwich and still call it a sandwich.

Never heard of a Hot Brown until I was enlightened by the PBS documentary, Sandwiches You Will Like. How did I get to be this old without hearing of or EATING a Hot Brown? A Louisville specialty, the Hot Brown is fitting for a Kentucky Derby party, as chronicled in Washington Post Food today. My preference would be to eat one in Kentucky, made by someone else’s hands. In lieu of that, find a recipe here for this gooey broiled wonder described by Bonny Wolf in the Post as “Louisville’s famous hot open-faced sandwiches of turkey, tomatoes, bacon and peppery Mornay sauce.”

I’d like to know who coined the term “open-faced” and when.