tricks AND treats

Posted on October 31, 2012 | 2 comments

Hurricane Sandy was oh-so-much-more than a trick. On beyond mischief, she did exquisite and irreparable damage up and down this massive coast. My best friend’s business is under four feet of water and my son’s good friend has half a house.

I’m home working and pondering what I can do to help, if anything other than count my blessings. Foraged a little lunch from the near-bare fridge and came up with a seasonally appropriate sandwich, something to make me think about Thanksgiving.Health Bread from Bruno’s Bakery in Chicago brought to me by my friend Kate of Strong Wear, sliced turkey, little scrap of brie, shaved Brussels sprouts and moutarde de Lyon. All quiet on the lunch front, I savored it in kitchen silence.

Today is Halloween and Sandy has subsided. The wreckage here? One smashed gourd and a pingpong ball-sized hole in the ceiling. I feel as though we walk on water sometimes. Sandy brought into bold, living color how well life treats me more often than not.  The least of my worries was trick-or-treating, but lo and behold, out goes my son tonight in perfect weather. Crystal clear and gorgeous, cold enough for his layers of…what is that costume anyway? Who knows, but he loves it, as it includes a sword.

I am very, very sad for all the loss and destruction wrought by this wet, wild storm and extremely grateful for my good fortunes. Thanksgiving is up next and my heart is ready.

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Rage on Sandy. What about lunch?

Posted on October 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Lunch is, hands-in-the-honey-jar down, my favorite meal. Anything goes. Breakfast food, dinner food, odds and/or ends, leftovers, tidbits. I can make a lunch that thrills me out of anything.

At breakfast folks are finicky, rightly so, and at dinner there are expectations. Not so with lunch. Mining the refrigerator unearths the most delicious things. Particularly if one is alone. Or making a little something for just you plus two.

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Probly Creatable and Creatively Probable

Posted on October 28, 2012 | 1 comment

A couple weeks ago I drove to Charleston, West Virginia. Made a weak attempt at coercing Snittin’ Paula to join me but no dice. She did, however, slip me some undercover traveler tidbits that put my pedal to the metal.

When I drove down to Charleston to get the sailboat we passed a place in town that had a sign saying “Home of the Spa-Hoagie”. We guessed that it was a hoagie made with spaghetti. You might want to track the place down and try one.  In my recollection, it was a railroad-themed place and we were making a left turn (it was on our left).

When we were driving to Charleston we saw the 3-Way Inn, so you have one of my favorite roadside sites to look forward to. We did not stop. We had a sailboat to pick up. I guess many other travelers stop. We had two dogs with us so we speculated whether we would meet the requirement. Perhaps weight wise. If you drive look for the 3-Way.

We both regret not having a spa-hoagie.

Killing me that I have never seen, nor eaten a spaghetti hoagie. Next best thing – NOT! –  is looking around online. Cold spaghetti comfort. I did it anyway and found  Mickey’s Pizza where  is on the menu.

People, assuming they are people, type about this stuff. Spaghetti can be the thread that connects us, the tie that binds. And bread, well bread is our lifeblood, as maligned as it may be lately by some. Swaying wheat precedes human consciousness and is the bed we make, the shelter we raise, and the table that sighs or groans.

People talk about the probability and creatability of a spaghetti hoagie. A hoagie of any kind is creatable according to me. The word creatable is not, according to me. And probability is behind us as it has been done. The spaghetti hoagie endures, word.

When I googled “Spaghetti Hoagie” image I got this:

On the

Priceless freezer meal group

The group of Freezer Meal families in Eastern Utah. This blog is to help us keep track of recipes and how well they were liked.

And now I can’t stop looking at this blog. When did Tatertot Casserole become “classic”? Tatertot Casserole is what happens in your kitchen while you’re busy making other plans.

  Am I gonna eat those tots? I think I have other plans. Plans to pull the stuff from my freezer for Spaghetti Hoagies.

Funny thing is, when I google “Spaghetti Sub” or “Spaghetti Submarine”, there is virtually nothing. “Spaghetti Sandwich”? Whole nuther meatball. Everywhere. There. Here pretty soon.

PPN: Spaghetti Sandwich

The Food Network site has a recipe, should you need one. I would say this is a weekday repurpose of a weekend meal. The recipe is: Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. Should you need more specific guidance, the Food Network is only too happy to lend a hand and an ad.

And then there is the Encyclopedia of Sandwiches, wherein a recipe lives.

 Crazy, spa-crazy, the spaghetti sandwich is everywhere.

From where did it spring? Specifically. I understand the obviousness of its likely inception. And want to know more. Bread and spaghetti were not parallel innovations. So…?

Spaghetti Hoagie Day

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Some Serious Sandwich Business

Posted on October 25, 2012 | 1 comment

1058 Hoagie: Still Building a Sandwich on Par with Deli Board

By Anna Roth Wednesday, Oct 24 2012

The Bay Area has been home to countless culinary innovations, but if there’s one area where our friends back East have us beat, it’s sandwich engineering. The hot pastrami, the Reuben, the submarine — they’re all simple blueprints we follow out here, even in a city so focused on the new. Adam Mesnick, the brains behind his original Deli Board and the new 1058 Hoagie in SOMA, has taken those traditions with him from the East to create a temple to the Old World sandwich. But while his first place has become a destination for its playful takes on the classics, the new location has some improving to do before it earns a place on the list of great S.F. sandwich spots.

There is lots more to read, enough to make your sandwich-lovin’ noodle burst. Read on, if you’ve got the fortitude, here.

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Brooklyn by the Sea

Posted on October 20, 2012 | 4 comments

At Duck Fat in Portland, Maine I see my son in these hipsters. As I type he is prying away at the grip of my fingers, soon to fly this coop for hipper environs. When he gets there, wherever there is, away from here, from me, I hope he eats this well.

We noodled out a roadtrip to Portland, interviewed our brains on where to eat, looking for a spot between red onion and cruise liner. Duck Fat girl said we’d have to wait till the middle of next week and we did. My time flew, lubed as it was with juice.

Focus your audio, folks, poutine is everything plus. It’s badass when it’s bad – with the cheap stuff, squeaker curds and jello gravy – and badasser when it’s good, dressed up posh. Local babes dressed to kill ya with fat and more fat. Sustainable, baby.

These fellas know their groceries and they’ll show you if you let em. Slip in, sit down, drink up, clean your plate. Slurp-de-slurp.

Keeping my foodist claws sharp driving tacks into the meccas. Bang, bang, bang, the greased velvet of animal fat goes in easy and doesn’t leave a visible mark. 

This shack throws babies out the balcony when it comes to panini. Decked to check, people.

Dinner that day? Yo, dude, do I look cronked? Three oysters, a gallon of water and an  espresso. Ready, steady, go!




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Toast Poast Number 11

Posted on October 12, 2012 | 2 comments 

The toast is made yet again.

“The review for “Shark Sandwich” was merely a two word review which simply read “S**t Sandwich”. ” What the what? Only Nigel knows for sure. Million and eleven thanks, Tech Guy. 

 

 

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Knock Knock By Any Other Name

Posted on October 11, 2012 | Leave a comment

According to reputable sources William Shakespeare invented the internet. The English language, prose, poetry and knock knock jokes sprang eforth.

Toc Toc to the French, Klop Klop in Dutch, and keep it in Dutch cause klop, says the Urban Dictionary, is suck an icky word in so many ways, shapes and forms. You don’t wanna know.Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Gorilla.

Gorilla who?

Gorilla cheese sandwich for me, and I’ll be right over.

Mr. Shakespeare started it. Klop him. And then duck cause he might klop you back. Harder.

Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ th’ name of Beelzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of a cheese sandwich. Come in time, have napkins enough about you, here you’ll sweat for ‘t.

Knock, knock! Who’s there, in th’ other deviled ham’s name? Faith, here’s an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O, come in, equivocator.

Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there? Faith, here’s an English tailor come hither for stealing a Croque Monsieur out of a French bakery . Come in, tailor. Here you may roast your goose.
Loose as a goose dnt get me started;
Gon of dem jiggaz when I step up in da party;
Knock knock knock knock;
Dnt get me started’

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Somebody’s Got A Bun!

Posted on October 10, 2012 | 1 comment

In the spirit of the season.

Frank Deford says that staying true to one’s home team teaches allegiance.  In that spirit, I say no to hotdogs and yes to BRATS! Gimme a B. Gimme an R. Gimme an A. Gimme a T. Whaddaya put it on?? A BUNNNNNN!

Thanks B to LRoy.

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Power Lunch

Posted on October 9, 2012 | 3 comments


The world looks from different three inches up. And it looks back at you differently, too. On top of a pair of high heels my appetite is elevated, and the world’s appetite for me, too, is raised.

In Boston, Mary Sherman of the Transcultural Exchange, stepped out with me to Coppa for lunch where we enjoyed the sensual power of pig and the essential power of transendent friendship.

I found  Amy Cuddy on my TED app and her talk was thrilling.

“We’re fascinated with body language,” she says.

When we scrutinize ourselves, we think about how other people are judging us. We’re not wrong to do so. “We make sweeping judgments and inferences from body language, ” and those judgments can predict enormously important life outcomes.

But, says Cuddy, there is another half that we ignore, another audience. Ourselves. Does our own body language affect how we think of ourselves?

She studies power and dominance and starts by showing us a picture of primates. They expand, they take up space and occupy the space of other animals to show dominance.

Cuddy ran an experiment in which people were directed to pose in high-power and low-power poses, assigned randomly, for two minutes.

People in high status are found to be more risk-tolerant (and less responsive to stress). There were also physiological changes — participants also had about an 8% increase in testosterone. There was a similar, but reversed, pattern for cortisol. That’s significant because testosterone is associated with risk tolerance, and cortisol with stress response.

She ends her talk with an extraordinary request: Once you know this information about how easy it is to feel powerful — share it. Because it’s the people without power who aren’t in a position to learn these techniques. And empowering someone who truly needs that power could change a life.

 Smelling the pig tail with mostarda. I thought there was quince in my bowl but the waiter said no, only stone fruits. I was sitting and sniffing while he was standing. Does that make him right?

I like a big, absorbent napkin. The better to wipe your mouth with, my dear.

I had read it was a “best of” and it was. It was in front of me, it was sensational and I could not have asked for anything better. What a grinder. Meat was to cheese was to greens was to bread in a balance of powers that pulled and pushed and achieved absolute equilibrium.


Go on, put on those high heels, stretch out, feel yourself in space, relax, go for some pig tail, and please don’t crowd me.

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Quotidianwich

Posted on October 1, 2012 | Leave a comment

Sandwich Monday: Sagal Sandwich

by Peter Sagal

NPR – September 10, 2012

Today, a very special Sandwich Monday: Peter shares the sandwich that made him who he is today.

Every day during the 7th and 8th grade I would go into the lunchroom at Columbia Junior High School in Berkeley Heights, N.J., and unwrap the same sandwich: Hebrew National salami on white bread with sweet pickle relish.

I’ve been wanting to re-create the sandwich for years. I used Trader Joe’s Organic White bread, which is as stiff and crumbly as the bread I remember, but is a little too tasty. Fortunately, pickle relish still tastes like pickle relish.

Peter: Making this sandwich was like a Proustian flashback. I felt suddenly weird, unsure and awkward. Fortunately, my hair also grew back.

Ian: I can’t imagine the 13-year-old Peter eating this without also imagining a 20-year-old Carl there, too.

Peter: The salami has changed. It’s much blander than it used to be. Back in the day, I remember it being more peppery and redolent of humiliation.

Mike: That’s probably the Clearasil.

Eva: I don’t know if this is related, but after eating this I suddenly know a lot of Star Trek trivia.

Ian: This is basically a reorganized hot dog.

Peter: I actually like it. I did then, too. It’s why to this day I like to go into fine dining establishments and smear pickle relish on everything.

Ian: As bad as this sandwich is, I’m happy to learn the phrase “Sagal Sandwich” does not refer to a wrestling move. Yet.

[The verdict: Well, I liked it, but then again, I always did.]

Reorganizing a hotdog. What could that involve? Could it be, as was suggested by my friend Chris,“Starting with some kind of magnetic disturbance that activates the fetzer valve”?

[You got any Sandwiches Of Your Youth?] Peter Sagal wants to know as do I.

[Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]

Thank you, Panhandle Slim, for sending this over the transom.

 

 

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