The Lunch Encounter

Yes, no PR is bad PR. One always needs PR. None is bad. And bad is not bad. Any is good. Bad is good. PR is PR. NPR is good PR.

I know timing is everything. I know Thanksgiving 2010 is long past. I could NOT get in the mood to post this in the tight sandwich of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Open space now between feasts and I am feeling all full of myself. In the mood to crow, not gobble.

America’s Test Kitchen gives Thanksgiving a makeover with NPR

More shameless self promotion from me, via NPR. Prior to Thanksgiving I had the pleasure of preparing Chris Kimball and Renee Montaigne for a cooking segment featuring revamped Thanksgiving icons – Turkey Of Course, Gravy O.C., Stuffing Naturally, Whipped Potatoes Natch, Green Bean Casserole in a Slow Cooker – brilliant!, Apple Slab Pie, also brilliant!, Pecan Pie with NO CORN SYRUP IN IT.

To my great good fortune, my earth daughter, Hannah, was visiting. There were 4 days of work on the schedule, with the clock ticking down from two days. My planner did not plan appropriately and Hannah came to my rescue. She looked so beautiful doing it, too, and she dj’d our prep. Punch Bros on the iPod. New to me. Good to hang out with these young people.

What Hannah wrote to me when the segment debuted:
The pictures from the npr thanksgiving went up and there’s a picture of my hands! I was so excited haha.

Rectangles vs. Triangles for that leftover turkey sandwich

You’ve got a lot of decisions to make as you build that leftover turkey sandwich. White or wheat? Mustard or mayo? How about cranberry sauce? One decision you’ll probably make with ease is whether to cut the sandwich into triangles or rectangles. If you go for the diagonal slice, you’re in good company. Chefs, foodies, an architect and even a mathematician all told us that diagonal rules. But why?

paper (emphera) → short-lived whatever (empheral) → mayflies (Empheroptera)

Mayflies
Live under water for a year
Grow wings
Become airborne
Have as much sex as possible for a few hours
Die

The metaphor is obvious, of this I am aware.

At lunch at The Celebrity Delly, I pocketed our receipt as a piece of essential “ephemera.” “Ephemera?” he raised his eyebrows. “I only know it as an adjective,” then did a bit of biologist’s hotdoggin’, mentioning mayflies, noting that their order is Empheroptera from the Greek ephemeros (“short-lived”) and pteron (“wing”).

You gotta mine those strip malls while you are alive and well. There is a rich vein in those non-hills, flat as tracts in Sacramento. The corned beef hillocks, on the other hand – or in both hands – stack tall and juicy.

Mark seems to be sliding off the deck of the Titanic with the imminent demise of sandwiches, plates, utensils and beverages crashing onto the floor, splashing onto the walls and bringing our lunch to a wallop of a halt. Grab hold of that feast while it is in reach and you’ve got the verve of desire.

When one has a lunch encounter with a biologist, the mayfly is typical conversational fodder. Whup whup! You gotta live it while you got it. Birth, transformation, lunch, transcendence, death.

The Celebrity Delly just goes to showya that riches are in your own backyard. Been by it a million times on my way to my favorite knit shop, but never felt the urge to go in. It looks like, honestly, not much from the outside. Just goes to showya, it pays to look deep, not just than wide. Mine that vein.

What they say weird IS:
involving or suggesting the supernatural; unearthly or uncanny fantastic; bizarre concerned with or controlling fate or destiny

I’m weird? Me? Little ole me? Oh thank you soooo? Weird? Yes, please and thank you.

NEW YORK’S WEIRDEST SANDWICHES

If toast is what your heart desires,
And you would seek its pleasures,
You would do well to stoke up fires
And lay in doughy treasures.
I would not have thee moan and gnash
thy teeth on air and mutter,
I’d rather see you have a bash
At toast and bread and butter.

Who wrote this? I do not know.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

“If you bring forth what is within you,
what is within you will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you,
what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
– Jesus in Gospel of St Thomas.

Sounds a little threatening. Yikes. Okay, I am bringing forth what is within me, on a platter, with a garnish. Toast perhaps, buttered, and with jam. Homemade.

I never had a piece of toast
Particularly long and wide,
But fell upon the sanded floor,
And always on the buttered side.
James Payn, 1884

For 2011 and forever, may your toast fall BUTTER-SIDE UP.

It’s the winter solstice. The moon was eclipsed last night. The festival of lights is upon us.  I do so wish you were here to watch the days grow longer with me. You know who you are. Anyone I have ever loved, I love still, and I do so wish you were here. That includes the critters.

We stay home during the “winter holiday” and travel on the highway of poignancy and nostalgia that is in our hearts.

Sometimes a person has to travel for love. Imagination is not adequate. Pulled towards it at 10 miles above the limit.  Towards live music and a band that brings it in spades. I could hear it way far off in the future, up the road, and needed to run towards it. Run. That’s what happened in November, when the days were still waning and I needed a pick-me-up. Had to hit the road for love.

We were there. At the Bell House. In Brooklyn. For a dip into the Brooklyn Flea followed by a dive into the Bloodshot showcase featuring the beloved Bottle Rockets (see them above and Roscoe, too). We were a roadtripping trio, Seemeen-o-wich, Along-for-the-Ride Hei7di and me. In custom Bottle Rockets shirts, made by shamelessly self-promoting ME.

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The food at the gig was damn tasty, cooked by The Good Fork, and we watched Decent e eat a sandwich.  The show was long. And started early. Five bands. Five lively bands. And by the time we were riding back to Newark, we were hungry again and on the prowl for the bad fork. Two roads diverged at the yellow line, and we took the one most traveled by.

The fork that lead to White Mana!

In Jersey City. Pass through is what you do.

It was a bad, bad fork. So forking bad it was GOOD!

There were lots of open seats at the counter and in the booths. Room for us and for you, too.So forking good, we had several. They were small. Wish you had been there.

The excitement mentioned is theirs, not mine. I’m too busy being green with envy. Nah, not really. I’m excited, too! A ‘wich in every pot. Meat under every tree. Bring it on!

Thank you, Along-for-the-Ride Hei7di, for hookin’ me up with pop-meat-hipwich.

As the editor’s letter in SANDWICH #1 puts it: “The sandwich — muse, global shapeshifter, social leveler — is ultimately far more than an aggregate of bread, filling, and spread.”

Well, dang-a-clang-bang, I coulda told you that.

Meatpaper‘s special supplement makes my mouth water. Read it, then use it to wrap a greasy wich. Read, reuse, recycle.

Santa Baby, bring a little Meatpaper for me.

SILF

Bright Young Things

Bleh, not one of my favorite acronyms, but WTF? Thanks, I think, to Michael O’Sullivan via Pat Goslee for the link.

As proprietor of this joint it is within my purview to refuse entry to anyone using coarse language, but I’m feeling all welcoming and inclusive and, well, Christmasy.

There, I did it, posted something semi-tasteless and outside of the parameters of what I would consider professional. Forgive me. The SILF link is pretty good, actually. Let’s assume the creator is young,  like twelve, and a precocious writer.

My two favorite new words, which I think could easily be used in a double entendre context connected to the acronym SILMLT are….embiggen and smallerize.

To embiggen this sandwich do as recommended by Libby of SILF, head on out to Fast Gourmet on Double U Street. Fast. You will not be smallerized by this Cuban, you will be biggerized.

Bada Bing has hit the streets of DC, with Spiedies and Cheesesteaks to eat on foot. I have never known a spiedie to appear south of Binghamton, New York. No regional dish, no matter how itty bitty or odd, is safe when a crafty entrepreneur gets a bee in his bonnet. Spiedies go south! Badabing!

Rebel Heroes went on the block soundlessly, re-emerging as The Big Cheese. When a truck as seemingly successful as Rebel Heroes stalls out, you’ve got to wonder just how freakin’ hard it must be to make a go of a wheeled lunch encounter.

Bada Bing, Big Cheese, put the pedal to the metal and may the ring of !chi-ching! be your constant soundtrack.

Thanks to Gabe Paal for keeping me current.

Ray and Kay could trade places, to align themselves beneath their names. Or not.

The hand of Henry Darger‘s spirit must have been at work creating Kay and Ray. Darger’s work has been described as bringing to light “the sweetness and horror of childhood.” Yes.

Michael Bonesteel, the man who authored the definitive book on Darger, was a friend a long time ago and, although I have not seen Darger’s paintings since Michael introduced me to them then, maybe 30 years ago, Darger’s girls take up solid space in my memory. 

Kay and Ray’s package boasts of “prime processed lard”, a claim that is given credence by the righteous crunch within. Oh, the sweetness and horror.

Want to read about Henry Darger and see pictures? Check out InterestingIdeas.com