Photo by Stacy Zarin, Foodstyling by Lisa Cherkasky, for Baltimore Magazine, with art direction from lovely Amanda White who knows enough to love Texas, the Texas that is Marfa. (Unrelatedly related….Oh bleh. There is a restaurant in NYC called Marfa. I shoulda known. Oh bleh. And the menu, to my quick-to-disdain taste, reads really dumb and broad. Is all of Texas bbq, fish tacos, biscuits and beer? No, no, no. Texas is as big as the moon, baby, and sweeps in a fistful of cultures.)

I know this tall stack ain’t no sandwich. However, Miss Shirley’s does serve a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious sandwich, and yes, I know that is a stupidcalifragilisticexpialidocious word. Nevertheless, my pride puffed a bit upon spelling it correctly on my first dashed off attempt. Whether you admit it or not, the word is fun to say, say you are of a certain perfect vintage, as am I. I admit it, shamelessly.

The first two clever and lucky brainiacs will each win a pair of tickets!!!That’s four, count ’em, four, tickets in all!!

Save the Deli!

SOLVE OUR STUMPER!

S O S

And win a pair of free tickets to:

In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen

Wednesday, October 21, 7 pm

Sixth & I
600 I Street, NW – Washington, DC 20001

(Metro: Gallery Pl-Chinatown)

And now…. the stumper!

Put on your thinking caps and sharpen your Black Warrior.

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A vegetarian sailor is shipwrecked but manages to swim to a nearby island. He knows that on this island are two groups of natives: The cheese sandwich eaters who always tell the truth, and the ham sandwich eaters who always lie.

He stumbles onto the beach at night, barely alive, and bumps into an islander. Nearly starved, the sailor is looking for a cheese sandwich.  He asks the islander if he is a vegetarian or not. The man mumbles a response that the sailor can’t make out, so he asks again. To the sailor’s left, another man responds “He said he’s a cheese sandwich eater, but he’s not.” Then from the sailor’s right a woman calls out “No, he said he’s a ham sandwich eater, but he’s not. ”

What dietary rules do all three of these islanders follow? Which ones eat cheese sandwiches and which ones eat ham sandwiches? From whom can the vegetarian sailor get a bite to eat?

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Work it out – QUICK – and get back to me asap. The first correct answer wins a pair of tickets to:

In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen

An Evening with David Sax

As a life-long deli obsessive, David Sax was understandably alarmed by the state of Jewish delicatessen – a cuisine that once sat at the very center of Jewish life had become endangered by assimilation and health food trends. And so Sax set out on a journey around the world in search of authentic delicatessen. As chronicled in his new book, Sax investigates everything deli – how it’s made, who makes it best, and where to go for particular dishes.

Sax will speak about how Jewish people view deli cuisine in relation to their health, weight, and bodies. Todd Kliman, Food and Wine Editor and Restaurant Critic for The Washingtonian, will interview Sax to uncover if it is still possible to save the deli. Join this rallying cry for a new generation of food lovers, and sample some classic deli fare while you’re at it.

S O S

SAVE OUR SANDWICHES!

Katz’s pastrami

And boys will be boys. Boy, will they. Until they are men, and then men will be boys. Not to put too fine a point on it. An hour meeting with the school counselor will certainly put a fine point on my parenting weak spots. The cracks, crevasses, Achilles’ heels, fears and intense love that all guide and misguide my motherself. Time to come down hard on that boy. I was told, and I will follow.

Mothers will be mothers. Don’t push me, cause I’m telling you, I can be a mother of a mother.

Positive reinforcement is a sanctified technique. He will do anything for bacon. The question is: Will he NOT do anything for bacon? You know, there is “start behavior” and “stop behavior”. If I put a little bacon under the pillow, would he make his bed with gladness in his heart? If I were to withhold bacon, would he talk to me with a tone of gladness in his heart?

Is that child reaching for romaine? A fake out, no doubt. Some sort of ploy to finagle one more ounce of flesh from his mother’s heart.

Who you callin’ a baconheart? Me? You callin’ me a baconheart? Yes, I do have a righteous soft spot for a boy who will not behave.

On a separate, but closely related, topic, the title of my next book will be “Women Who Love Men Who Love Guitars”. Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be geetarplayers. Bacon Achin, Guitar Lovin’ Guitar Players in particular.

BERLIN JOURNAL

Ovens on Feet Beckon Germans to Bratwurst

By Nicholas Kulish

(Heavens to Betsy, this thing looks like it really does have feet, in shoes, on heels.)

Jürgen Stiller regularly stands outside Berlin’s historic Friedrichstrasse train station with a four-pound canister of flammable propane strapped to his back. But if a police officer approaches him, it is only to buy one of the hot bratwurst sizzling on the flaming grill suspended from his shoulders.

Read on here.

Oh, to encounter a grillwalker near home. A bratwurst makes us lose our minds!

Ta daaaaah! The Currywurst Museum has opened!

Deutsches Currywurst Museum
Schützenstraße 70
10117 Berlin

A Museum Devoted to a National Snack Obsession

BERLIN | There’s no doubt that Germans love their currywurst, a national fast food favorite that consists of fried pork sausage served with a sauce typically made from ketchup and curry powder. And there’s no other German city more obsessed with currywurst than Berlin. It is it often said that the dish was invented in the city by a woman named Herta Heuwer in 1949 (though Hamburg also claims to be the its birthplace). Soon the city will be celebrating the opening of a museum dedicated entirely to the humble snack.

Read on here.
What’s not to like, I ask you?

Pittsburgh welcomes world leaders with open-faced sandwiches

A tidbit to wet your whistle:
I’d steer visitors first to Primanti Brothers for the city’s best-known sandwiches. It’s in an old warehouse district, known as the Strip, by the Allegheny River. Here’s the formula: a slice — nay, a slab — of Italian bread, your choice of a couple of dozen meats (pastrami, Italian sausage, etc.), topped with sweet and sour coleslaw, sliced tomato and, wait for it, chunky French fries, before the top slab of bread. Legend has it that Primanti’s (founded in 1933) started making sandwiches this way so workers could operate machinery with one hand and eat with the other. It’s open 24 hours in the unlikely event that, say, the Saudi and South Korean delegations go on a rager and need some good grease to sop it up.

These sandwiches’ influence is such that “Pittsburgh style” is the local vernacular for fries in unexpected places.

Read all here.

Thank you, Mara!

Pondering dreamily over lunch not too long ago, She-Does-Her-Best-to-Suit-Herself Cynthia expressed a desire to open a hot dog stand and name it Frank’s. “Dumb, I know,” she remarked. Not dumb. Or rather, so dumb it is good. Frankly speaking. Although she has been scooped by an Austin hot dog outfit, I’d bet my bottom bun that she is not disappointed. A trip to Frank is in order, no doubt. 
I’ll take the Notorious P.I.G. neat, with a Bacon Makers back! One for here and one for the road. The high road – the mile high brown bag club.  Return flight sausage in a plain brown bag.

Long and rambling, this story will NOT be wrangled. For more than a week, I have been swingin’ my lasso, catching the mournful fwup, fwup, fwup in my ears as the rope first strikes the hide, then hits the ground. Taking one last tough stab at it today and then slipping it into my out box. Here it comes. Here it goes. Here’s the sandwich tease.

More about cheese steaks after a word from our sponsoring beefcakes.
We were there in Philly Sunday last for the mighty, mighty Bloodshot Records B¤B¤Q, making a splash, having a blast. Barbara Q Sauce never made it over to our table, all out, 86’d was the word, so we ordered off the menu. A far cry from BBQ – carrot soup. Fancy. Some Yayhoos were nearby, a duo of ’em, hatted, and we sent over a love-noted bev nap. Oooooh, they do twinkle on that Love Train.

We felt twinkly too, me and I-Do-My-Best-to-Suit-Myself Cynthia, and Along-for-the-Ride Heidi, all of us in red and white and black all over, subconsciously bloodshot. The line up at the World Cafe Live was hair raising, all the hair on  the back of your neck erect, quivering, yeeeiiii, what a beautiful ruckus of Ha Ha Tonka, Robbie Fulks, Cordero and then, and then, and then, darkness fell, and rock and roll rose with a triple whammy, The Bottle Rockets, Yayhoos and Waco Brothers. PoW PoW PoW.

On the Saturday afternoon preceding the Philly shindig, The Best Band on the Planet, The Bottle Rockets, came for dinner, before their load-in and sound check at Iota.

After the weekend fairy dust settled and everyone was back to business, firing up their work computers and taking advantage of corporate wifi, I bragged on myself on the Bottle Rockets message board, with a link to the pie fest post.

Brian Buck Stopshere Henneman posted this fine note:
The food had excellent presentation, a wonderful bouquet, with a strong finish.
Did not impede my rocking one bit (only because I passed on a second piece of pie. I was “takin’ one for the team” by doing so, ’cause I REALLY wanted more pie…).
It was so good, that the starfruit and mustard greens were not missed in any way.
It was so good that John Horton did not have to send any of it back.
So good that Keith happily allowed it to cross over into his pre-show “herbal hours”.
So good that Mark didn’t have to eat 600 pounds of it to be satisfied.
So good that I said “Hell YES” to pie, carb counts be damned.
‘Twas a fine ol’ time.
Definitely.
Thank you Lisa!
Brian

And this too. Swollen head material.

I must also add…
My favorite pie memory of the weekend was actually in Philadelphia.
Lisa brought a pie for The Yayhoos.
I walked into the dressing room, and there it was…
The ENCORE pie!
With the rocking and rolling completed for the evening, there was nothing to hold me back.
Myself, Roscoe, Dan Baird, John, Mark, Keith, Terry Anderson, all eating pie, as if it was a pizza.
Roscoe slicing it, and passing it around.
Dan had three pieces.
I was respectful, and let those Yayhoos have as much as they wanted, it WAS their pie.
It was such a happy scene.
A room full of rockers, eating pie.
Maybe not as enthralling as Led Zeppelin aftershow stories, but, perfectly enthralling by my standards…
Brian

BACKREADING FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE NOT VIGILANT LUNCH ENCOUNTER PATRONS
(You know who you are, pretty dang near all of yall I expect.)
DO NOT READ AHEAD WITHOUT FIRST DOING THE LEGWORK. HERE TIS.
Conversation that passed over hor d’oeuvries on the porch the afternoon of the Brox Iota gig:
Eyeing Brian, Cindy said, “My husband would look really good in that hat. Can he try it on?” Eyeing Cindy, Brian said to Jon, Cindy’s husband, ” I think I would look really good in your wife’s underwear. Can I try it on?”

Following Brian’s posts, and those of other Brox boarders, Cindy and I had an e-post-post-post mortem and she sparkled on Brian a bit. Cindy typed: Brian’s posts are so nice. It makes me like him even more. What a sweetie. I wish I had thrown my underwear at him.

I typed:  May I post this?

Cindy typed: You can post it on the board ONLY if you also say that I would not have thought to do it if he hadn’t asked to wear them!

I typed:  I will put it in context.

Cindy typed: Ok then. Just so folks know I would need a good reason to throw my underwear…

Tell you what, brother, she toyed with the idea of tossing panties onto the stage at The World Cafe Live. Had we only planned ahead a bit and stocked up on a cache of fresh, cute pairs…

NOT that we didn’t have enough fun. Keeping the level to myself, cause I will be condemned to a life of drudgery, just to even the score, should the powers that BE discover that the mercury blew through the top of my funometer.

We had as much fun as is legal at the Bloodshot BBQ, including coercing enforcers to bend rules for the three resident prima donnas. The following morning, were we haungry!!!! Reading Terminal Market, diner destination, was locked up tight on Labor Day. Our faces fell, and our appetites sighed real heavy.  Press faces to glass, silent as a tomb.

Boink. Bounced our heads on that drawing board we turned back to it so swiftly. Cheeeeeesesteaks, here we come!

Kitty corner, signs screaming in diagonal unison. EAT HERE EAT HERE EAT HERE EAT HERE EAT HERE! Pat’s? Geno’s? Pat’s? Geno’s? I got suckered by the neon. You know me, if it looks vintage, I’m in. Here to be bought, I am. That offcolor cheesesteak lumbering up the stairway to heaven should have tipped me off to the unsavory spiritual state of the place. Eeek.

O. Kay. Can you say, I’ll have mine with a side of intolerance? I could swear there was a wave of immigration from Italy, just, uh, not that long ago, in the grand scheme of things. Like a mere millisecond in the history of the world.

Warning: Reading this sign may cause all mastery of the English language to vanish from your brain. Blank. I went blank. Blinkety blink blink. Are you kidding me? Are you out of your minds? Don’t make me take you down in French!

As if we weren’t disgusted enough…  We saw red – in the sign at Pat’s King of Steaks, across the streak, and bolted for it. “We are going across the street for fries and drinks,” said Cindy, and she took off like the aggravated mother of a dawdling child. Long, strong strides. We scampered behind her and she did not reach back with a hand.

Je voudrais une steak du fromage, s’il vous plait, avec les frites de liberté. Oh, wit whiz. To put it in a univerally understandable, utterly non-English way.

We were enthralled with Pat’s “collateral”.

The wood grain cups especially tickled our fancies.

Oh, that sounds kind of suggestive, doesn’t it?
Fancy now, weren’t we?

Home again. Heidi got a souvenir, while I will have to souvien. Just below her devilucious winged minerva runs the word BLOODSHOT. Bloodshot she ain’t. Disheveled maybe, deviluciously disheveled. On the order of Record Companies We Love, by Jove, Bloodshot is Jupiter!

There, I said it, I meant it, I’m outta breath. Pant pant pant. Over and under pants! Here, there and everywhere. Over and under where? There!

A man walks into a bar with a cheese sandwich under his arm. “A pint of beer for me and the cheese sandwich,” he says to the barman.

“I’m sorry, sir,” replies the barman, “we don’t serve food in here.”

Thank you, Freya.
Freya Photo by Heidi Leech, Sandwich Photo by Dan Whipps, Styling by Moi
Mined from the file “Jokes That a Three-Year-Old Won’t Understand, But Will Laugh at Anyway”:

What is a sheep’s favorite sport?
Baaaaasketbaaaaaall, with a sandwich.

What did one wall say to the other wall?
Meet you at the corner, with a sandwich.

What did the snail say when he took a ride on a turtle?
Wheeee, with a sandwich!

Malcolm sent a tiny url our way and I thought, Awwww, how cute, a tiny url. For meeee??

Am I the last person on earth to learn about tiny urls? They are so cute and tiny, no wonder they got by me.

Five tasty burger joints worth visiting!
According to CNN.

The Triple XXX has been serving unique burgers — such as its Duane Purvis All-American. The sandwich is named after a Purdue football player who played from 1932 to 1934. “Add thick creamy peanut butter on the lower deck and you’re in for the touchdown!” says the menu.

Not to split hairs – oh, what the heck? Isn’t Triple XXX redundant?

I know I’ve really made it when I have my very own Tiny Url. Will break a split of champagne over its hull and christen it Triple SSS. That will be one Small url.