The Lunch Encounter

Photo by Renee Comet, Styling by Me Of Course

It’s all about the beer actually, but the sandwich ain’t too shabby. Makes me hanker for a trip to the Central Grocery and a sunny spot on the curb. Spread a paper napkin across your knee and chew slowly while the parade passes.

The last time I had a true Central Grocery muffeletta was in 1983. I could swear that was just last week. Time warps will mess you up! Heading out of New Orleans, pointing north towards January in Wisconsin, we invested heavily in muffulettas. They keep like crazy, least ours did, improving in fact, over two solid days of driving. Going north was good, that Colt had overheating issues. Cruising around Miami with the heat on full blast was painful.

Provisions:
Four muffalettas = 514 olives, 217 capers, 1786 celery seeds, 1200 bites
One cassette = Trio =  238579485 da da das

Da da da, ich lieb dich nicht du liebst mich nicht aha aha aha (or simply “Da Da Da”), or its English version, Da Da Da I Don’t Love You You Don’t Love Me Aha Aha Aha.

I love, luuurve, loave, luff a muuurfeletta, moavelleta, muffeletta.

For the olive salad:
1 gallon large pimento stuffed green olives, slightly crushed and well drained
1 quart jar pickled cauliflower, drained and sliced
2 small jars capers, drained
1 whole stalk celery, sliced diagonally
4 large carrots, peeled and thinly sliced diagonally
1 small jar celery seeds
1 small jar oregano
1 large head fresh garlic, peeled and minced
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 jar pepperoncini, drained (small salad peppers) left whole
1 pound large Greek black olives
1 jar cocktail onions, drained
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl or pot and mix well. Place in a large jar and cover with 1/2 olive oil and 1/2 Crisco oil. Store tightly covered in refrigerator. Allow to marinate for at least 24 hours before using.

For the sandwich:
1 round loaf italian bread
1/4 pound mortadella, thinly sliced
1/4 pound ham, thinly sliced
1/4 pound hard Genoa salami, thinly sliced
1/4 pound Mozzarella cheese, sliced
1/4 pound Provolone cheese,sliced
1 cup olive salad with oil

And there you go. Love in bread. Travels well.

Sara Roahen‘s Gumbo Tales was thoughtfully gifted to me by my niece. Good choice. She always hits the nail on the head bookwise. I had read about it, can’t remember where, and thumbtacked a note to my memory.

Ms Roahen’s book opens with a bit on Liuzza’s Restaurant and Bar, a spot that was oozing juice all over my appetite thanks to dark, sensuous photos in the recent Gourmet. Under Gumbo A Higher Education, page 4, she writes, Not long after I moved to New Orleans, my younger sister, Stephanie, flew down from our home state of Wisconsin to evaluate the city as a prospective home. Exercising New Orleans most persuasive means of seduction – dinner – I took her to the great neighborhood restaurant Liuzza’s Restaurant & Bar and ordered like ma: Abita Amber beer in frosted schooners, fried green tomatoes with shrimp rémoulade, a stuffed artichoke, fried chicken, seafood gumbo.


The closest I could get to New Orleans on short notice was the Louisiana Kitchen. We did not, regrettably, sit in the kitchen. Had we been admitted to the land of the fryer we could have gone home with the scent of oysters in our hair. Crispy cornmeal fried oysters. Rub that on your pillow and dream of the bayou.

Leaving it would just be so boring. Why have a ~ yaaawwwwn ~ banh mi, when you can have

From My Main Sandwich Man in NYC, JAF, an alert to this story!
There’s Something New Inside talks about the pandora’s box of banh mi (Vietnamese), num pang (Korean) and other Asian sandwiches.

Who wouldn’t want to hop, skip and jump to a joint named Xie Xie, Num Pang or Baoguette? Porchetta or Xoco? Your ears sandwich the lyricism of those nomina into your brain, rendering you helpless.

Manny’s Cafeteria and Delicatessen
“Come into Manny’s …bulk items by the pound.” Ooooh, bulk items by the pound. Load me up. Bury me. Do me in. Two words, item and product, are such non-words that I can project my wildest dreams onto them.

While I’m at it, I’m going to project my wildest dreams onto Obama. Me and several billion others here and around the world. Our president elect has a tall pedestal under him and a tall order in front of him. He’s got bulk items by the ton. Bulk items that need attention.

The man is gonna need fuel to power his perfectly paced reasonableness. To go and go and go, breathing in and out deeply and evenly, brain synapses clicking smoothly. Apparently Obama is inclusive in his tastes. Aaah, what a breath of fresh air.

Scott Simon on NPR reported on Obama’s affection for Manny’s in Chicago where, the president-elect orders corned beef and cherry pie to go. Now there’s a stimulus package. Manny’s corned beef sandwiches are large enough to have their own electoral votes.

To read more about Obama’s frequent visits to Manny’s and the folks with whom he shares his sandwiches read Obama Foodorama.

Time Out Chicago is all over Obama’s love affair with Manny’s too. Take a peek in Where’s the Beef?

With the inauguration fast approaching and the air temperature dropping by leaps and bounds, weekend strategizing is reaching a fever pitch. With each new piece of information released on the front page of the Washington Post, the bus stop posse dissects the possibilities for maximum inaugural vibe-absorption. It’s a bad case of Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. Here in Virginia we are so close and yet so far, with bridges barring our entree to the festivities. There is no going around, only over, and we ponder the bus, foot or bike pros and cons.

To further exacerbate our agony a bus stop parent brought his Swearing In tickets for show and tell this am. There was talk of knocking him down and making a run for it, but we all just dug our hands deep into our pockets, gathered round and stared at the golden sheaf bouncing sunlight off its shiny surfaces.

Us, we are gonna pack provisions and brave the herd. Bus to foot. I won’t see much other than a sea of joyous faces. My son will see less, his eye view being middle button height. So we will munch on corned beef sandwiches in Obama’s honor, shuffle and hop to keep our blood moving, bump up happily with the masses and hoof it home.

Man!

A big old truck.

The Bottle Rockets, “Love Like a Truck”    
Kansas Explorer, International Harvester
Michael Perry in Truck, A Love Story (Harper Collins, 2006),

“Spam is lately available in a single serving pouch. In the saddlebags of the four horsemen of the apocalypse are sandwiches made of this.”

Zippy! When read at Gilly’s. Primanti’s puts the fries inside, why not Cheetos? Gilly’s does it. Zippy does spudnuts. Me thinks Zippy might go for Lutherburgers.

See the Washington Post review of Gilly’s in Good to Go. The sandwiches at Gilly’s are Good to Go, but you gotta perch if you want to indulge in Gilly’s deeply delved libation selection.

Jon Wye
Holy Mary Mother of Materialism, would you take a look at this! Dinosaurs making toast! A girl’s gotta have it. Or its rather. Several.

Wanted to go over and see Jon Wye’s studio so I sent him a note. Blip, beep, blip, email exchange, zip, doink, blip.

Could you create Homemaking Dinosaurs Making Toast in Space?
L
Homemaking Dinosaurs Making Toast in Space… Oh I did that last year 🙂 But I’ve got some weird ideas percolating in my brain for future belts.
j
 i’ll bet you’ve got some ideas percolating. Arachnid Church Ladies Filling the Percolator or Toasted Future Brainwaves or…
L
I will let you in on a secret… “French Pirate Chefs!” But I really really like your ideas. I may have to run with those as some point.
Cheers
j

Sweet smarrrrt fella, that Mr Wye. And talented out the wazooooo.

We went to West Virginia to x-country ski ostensibly, but it was all a big sandwich boondoggle. Days of cooking – jumbo lump crabcakes, fat strip steaks grilled outdoors, leg of lamb seared in anchovy oil, black-eyed peas with sweet peppers and onion, clove-laced Christmas ham, bbq’d chicken legs – all culminating in a
Wichapalooza, a blinding smorgieboard of fixin’s that had us circling the table, once, twice, three times. Duck, duck, duck, GOOSE!

Ireland has doors.

We had sandwiches.




Crab cake sandwich, steak salad side
Leg of lamb sandwich, and a chicken thigh
Turf and surf
Turf and turf
Lamb on ciabatta, smoked trout spread
Cheddar and ham, onion, bread
Turf and surf
Guerns(ey) and turf
Olives, cheese, cast iron skillet
Spatula, low heat. Butter and grill it.

Lick your lips and head out for a little “x-country play.”

Books of the Times

Everything But the Squeal, Eating the Whole Hog in Northern Spain, By John Barlow

Pig: It’s What’s for Dinner In Northwestern Spain
By DWIGHT GARNER
Published: November 25, 2008

A bit of it:
Pork is, definitively, no longer the other white meat. In the hands of today’s chefs and committed eaters, it’s dark, glistening, salty, fatty, soulful and sinful – closer to Howlin’ Wolf‘s music than Pat Boone’s. A little of it will make anything taste better. Try smearing some drippings on the cover of an old Harold Robbins paperback.

With mustard and onion, to ride!

A short excerpt from the jump:
It’s not much fun, over the course of a few hundred pages, to listen to a writer (unless that writer is A.J. Liebling) rhapsodize about what he is putting in his mouth. This is why the photographs and recipes in food magazines are, 9 times out of 10, more welcome than the feature articles.

Makes one puff up with pride to be a food stylist.

Had the misfortune of eating at MacDonald’s four times in one week – Happy Meals each time with toys! – so had lots of time to study the collateral. I love this little image of Ronald MacDonald tossing his rubbish in the bin. Miniscule Ronald’s spirited body language says, “I’m so happy to be cleaning up!” 

The bin reminds me, in the new year, of these not-so-new refrains:
Keep it simple
Reduce, reuse, recycle
Less is more

You got to get your spiritual guidance wherever you can find it. Found! In a most unlikely place.