The Lunch Encounter

Must admit, I often feel most comfortable entering through the Employees Only entrance at restaurants. Just as I can get sensu-drunk on the smell of hockey equipment and ice, the mingling scents of not-too-distant dumpster, fresh stacks of industrially laundered linens, faint grease trap, and bones roasting make me feel right at home. Right where I should be.

The Palm has always been – in my imagination – a place for business dads and their faceless business compadres. I can’t imagine sitting at a table and not having an Alice in Wonderland shrinking experience. I shrink to my 12-year-old self. Next to my dad, who is suited up again, pocketchief and charm facing the world with ease and attitude.

The Palm DC had me in their pocket for a few days last summer, and I came to know their food well, up so close I could not correct the focus. The joint is not too shabby and wants the world to know. The Palm’s history alone speaks warm volumes.

“How long have you been here?” was a question I spread like buckshot. The employees seemed so at home, I needed to know how that came to be. The shortest duration mentioned was seven years. More common was a much longer stay, say, uh, thirty. Not too shabby.

Photos by Renee Comet Styling by Lisa Cherkasky

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the flea, Let us fly.
Said the fly, Let us flee.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

A girl and a girl ate a slew
Of sandwiches just in St Lou.
Mammer Jammer, Prosperity,
St Pauls, three for verity,
The Gerber, covered in goo.

Along-for-the-ride Heidi and I drove west to St. Louis with LouFest in the center of the compass. At points north, south, east and west were indigenous sandwiches that had been filling my daydreams – The Prosperity, The Gerber, The St Paul and The Mammer Jammer.

We did well while there, and we did well en route. Both journey and destination were sandwich and music-packed. Heidi did reconnaissance on the music, loading her iPod with Lou Fest tunes by Cory Chisel, the Bottle Rockets, The Airborne Toxic Event, Alejandro Escovado, the Carolina Chocolate Drops.

I did reconnaissance on sandwiches, excavating my files, not paying attention to Heidi’s recent vegan/vegetarian semi-conversion. I was not along for the ride on that one, so I took on a lot of sandwich eating, sometimes two or three at a time, with meat, meat and more meat. You gotta make hay when the sun shines and the sun was shining on big, sloppy, meaty wiches that weekend.

We loaded up our brains, and hearts too, with To Kill a Mockingbird on cd, checked out of the public library. Between Columbus and Indianapolis this line slid into the air, spoken by Sissy Spacek, “The shadow, crisp as toast…”. It was, you must know, Boo Radley, behind the parlor curtain. Crisp as toast. Crisp as toast.

First stop for sandwich – one for me, meatless sides for Heidi – Shapiro’s in Indianapolis, second day, first lunch.

Living “in the moment” has a nice ring to it, or could, if a moment was firm and could be rung, like a bell. Moments keep moving though, melting into the next and the next and the next. I’m gonna ride the wave of time, time being liquid, one sandwich at a time. We experienced Shapiro’s in time forward and back, going to St. Louis and on our return as well. The sandwiches eat stupendously, moving from east to west, moment by moment, or west to east.

Rilke’s words, part of a poem, this part not in quotes because I cannot remember his exact choice of words, Temporary-ess-ness (had to make up a word because I cannot think of another way to say it succinctly)…got that?, Temporary-ess-ness “is the fragrance of our lives.” That last part is the poetry part, and it lilted into my brain and stayed to rest.

We did rest a bit in St Louis, just long enough to check in, catch our breath and check the map. Ruma’s Deli, home of the Gerber Sandwich, is in south St Louis. We got there after dark, not too long before closing, and my heart was pounding a bit.

The racing of my blood slowed to a creep simply from the scent of a Gerber. Eating the Gerber and the Prosperity essentially Perry Como’d me. Not quite comatose, but close.

Second day, second lunch – The Gerber and Prosperity for me, Same thing minus the meat for Heidi, more or less – at Ruma’s Deli in South St Louis.

Thought we were done for the night after the Gerber adventure, but noooooo. The glowing OPEN sign on the Oriental Wok revived me. Whoosh, I was wide-eyed and on an epic St Paul alert. We followed the trail of fortune cookie crumbs.

Second day, third lunch – Three St Paul’s for me, Pork, Shrimp and Vegetable, Vegetable St Paul for Heidi – from the Oriental Wok, South St Louis.

They were so so so cheap, I ordered three. Under 10 bucks with a 20% tip. Who did I think was going to eat three of these things?

A St Paul is a 55% sandwich eating encounter because the top slice of bread sticks as tightly as epoxy to the top of your mouth. There is no chewing and/or swallowing it. The bottom slice I used as a napkin. That left the egg foo young and condiments. East meets west in a melding moment. Time almost stands still, holding its breath.

Third day, first lunch – BBQ all around the truck cab – from the Iron Barley via Blues Fest.

Third day, second lunch – THE MAMMER JAMMER!

We did have another full day of music before we hit the road for home.

Fourth day, first lunch – Shapiro’s reprisal.

Fourth day, last meal on the road.

Please forgive the bizarre syntax and egregious spelling error. Too, to, two late now for corrections.
Oh, nevermind my apology. The previous two photos are out of orders. That explains everything. It does take chutzpah to open something this fine in a such a quiet stretch. The Upper Crust jazzed the part of me that has faith in the future.

No, they are not sandwiches. When my clients say “Jump”, I jump. Jumping feels so good and all.

I had a business partner once and we were looking to open a restaurant. He did, in fact, open a restaurant, a very successful, rightly so, restaurant, Obelisk. It is the perfect restaurant.

Anyway, way back then we were looking at real estate. Everywhere. All over town. Looking for something unusual, something quietly spectacular that no one had noticed.

One afternoon I took him to see a long closed Greek diner in Alexandria, the Majestic. The parents of a high school friend of mine had owned it for many years. The glass had been covered with paper for a long, long time, and the secrets behind that paper intrigued me to the point of making me itch all over. We looked. At the glass, at the door, at the beautiful sign, the MAJESTIC.

The paper covered the glass to about 6 feet above the sidewalk. I jumped. Split second peek. A tease. I jumped again. Same tiny tease. “You gotta jump,” I said to my partner. “I don’t jump,” said he.

It’s coming!

I’ll be there! Presenting!

With my pals Renee Comet and Elizabeth Stewart.

You would not catch me dead doing it alone.

A bit more information here.

I am liking the description, especially certain choice words such as connection, shared, friendships and experience. As I said the other night, to quote myself in a me! me! me! moment, “I do not like the combination of food and competition.” “The two are redundant to me,” snorted Walter Nichols.
I know I need to do some planning, but what concerns me most is, what will be served for lunch?

One degree of separation. F not C, which is super close. Debbie Wahl, stylist and friend, found it, Suzanne Sparkman Springer, (or is it Springman Sparker) stylist and friend who also assists, (thank heaven), carried it. I read it and am now posting. Thank you Debbie and Suzanne, for remembering that I am sandwich-focused.

Debbie must have flown somewhere (probably for work. no, I am not jealous. ha ha ha.) cause this is from Spirit Magazine, an airline rag.

The Compleat Sandwich

On my Home-Away-From-Home-at-Home, The Bottle Rockets message board, HaldenSpoonwood posted:

This is not about a Slinger, per se, but I had this yesterday, and it was practically Slingerian in it’s monstrousness:

It’s a Mojomatics Legendary Cheez Dog. Let me see if I can remember the 14 ingredents:

1. Bun
2. Mayo on the bun
3. two slices of American Cheeze
4. Footlong dog, grilled.
5. onions
6. Two slices of bacon
7. Parmesan cheese
8. shredded cheddar cheese
9. hot sauce
10. Chili
11. Cheeze Whiz
12.
13. sour cream
14. Crumbled Corn chips on top

I’m missing something. Anyway, it was damn good.

Then Decent e wrote:

I don’t know, I think they could’ve fit at least one more hot dog into that bun.
Where did you get that thing? Someplace in Chicago? Glad you survived to tell the tale.

Halden wrote:

This was my friend Mojo’s invention. It was consumed in Chicago, at the American Legion FDR Post 923 (Booster Fest!), which was a one-time event, with bands, etc…So it’s not often available

It’s the big can that counts. Just what the heck IS nacho cheese? Gonna do some online sleuthing right now. The cheese will embalm your chips. The balm will eese your lips.

The Mitsitam Cookbook
The National Museum of the American Indian has a destination restaurant, Mitsitam, and I had the privilege of doing the styling for the Mitsitam Cookbook, shot last summer by Renee Comet. It was my favorite project for 2009 and now I am thrilled to have a copy in my hands.

The Urbanite talks about traditional food and the Mitsitam Cookbook. Same forum, different topic: FRY BREAD!

Slap a little thin sliced roasted venison between two salted fry bread saucers. Mmm. That’ll carry you through the day and into tomorrow.

It’s here! I got my advance copy. Gorgeous!

Melvyn’s Restaurant and Lounge

My date said, “Is this Jose Feliciano singing Light My Fire?!”

French Onion Soup, Vichyssoise, Monte Cristo Sandwich, Oysters Rockefeller! Oh, those were the days.

The stuff of fantasies. Best in our imaginations, free of cracks and crevasses. Our waitress had every intention of dying young and staying pretty, no matter how many miles she clocked in Melvyn’s lounge.

Turn Parchment Paper into a Toaster Bag for Mess-Free Toasted Sandwiches

Says the headline. I think this is truly clever. Terrified that I will feel compelled to line our freezer shelves with premade toaster sandwiches, all wrapped neatly in parchment. Hmm, that gets me thinking. Would anything work, anything not too wet? Say, pancakes? Fettucine carbonara?

If you want your toaster to do double duty warming up sandwiches, bagel spread, and more, these crafty DIY toaster bags made from baking parchment paper are just the ticket to a mess-free and multi-functional toaster.

Culinary tips and tricks blog The Kitchn highlighted Toastabag, a product designed to help you make sandwich melts and heat up things in your toaster without making a mess of the inside. Thrifty reader Jess wrote in with a more economical DIY solution:

I enjoyed your post about Toastabags. I was reluctant to run out and buy them without knowing if I’d really use them. Then it occurred to me that I could use parchment paper the same way as a Toastabag. I could rip off a piece and fold it into a pocket. So, I tried it with a slice of leftover pizza and it worked like a charm!

This is a hack best suited for wide-mouth toasters like bagel toasters. At minimum it allows you to try out whether or not commercial “toaster bags” would be a worthwhile investment before actually purchasing one. If it works well enough for you, you can skip the commercial models and fold your own at home.

You can buy fancy packaged Toastabags, although I am reluctant to peel cabbage for something associated with a word that ends in a, Toasta. That hanging question, Toast a what?, pops a hole in the thrill-of-purchase bubble for me.

At any rate, I do think this idea is clever and we are going to try it. In the picture, the bread browns through the bag. Is that possible? Must check with Shirley Corriher on this. Or maybe the folks at Reynolds who engineered the turkey roasting bag.

Comp drawn by Claudia Barac-Roth

When we reach the destination, I breathe more lightly, but who’s to say I may not breathe with ease along the way?

I saw mentioned with admiration in an obit for a very old woman in Northern Minnesota, a Swedish-American wife for many, many years, that on the day of her death, all of her husband’s shirts were meticulously pressed. A friend, a Minnesotan and Swedish-American herself – next generation, thankfully – remarked, “On the day I die, I hope none of my husband’s shirts are pressed.”

Where I grew up, Wisconsin, another state filled with Scandinavian-Americans who rate one’s worth on outward appearances, the orderliness of a woman’s clothing on the line determined her merit as a citizen. Nowadays, my midwestern life long behind me and living in an era where “house” and “work” find their way into sentences only when they accompany the word “help”, I hang my laundry inside. To be accurate, accuracy being another virtue in Midwestern communities, “toss”, “dangle” or “fling” would be words more on the mark than “hang”.

Photo by Michael Pohuski, Art Direction by Claudia Barac-Roth, Styling by Lisa Cherkasky