The Lunch Encounter

Paula went to Reno for Christmas and stopped (on the way from the airport, I hope) at Big Ed’s Alley Inn.

Hope you had a great Christmas. Here’s the meatloaf sandwich.

Sandwich:
homemade meatloaf
melted chedder and pepperjack cheese
grilled onions
chutney
on grilled sour dough bread.
Home made chips on side (with an option for really good fries)

Big Ed’s is next store to DbarM, Reno’s best western store. Pick up saddles (including a pink or purple leather one), saddle blankets, ropes, boots, hats, shirts as well as cool items like baskets made out of barbed wire.

(Good to know Paula (center back) is eating well and maintaining her strength cause she’s gonna need it to complete green/black versions of this,

her current knitting affair.)

Happy New Year (! – I am adding the !)

8 Track Mind* Collides With 1 Track Mind**!

Eggs all over the tracks! And not over easy. 

From the fifties. From Malcolm Riviera, ephemera king.

(*That would be Malcolm himself, 8 track maven. Maven sounds like a word that should apply only to women, but I know for a fact that it is unisex.

** And me, 1 track mind often, food food food food food food food.)

I love the quiet understatement of Woolworth’s menu. Just two exclamation points. “For a real treat!” and “You will like it!” It will be real and I will like it. Such containment of emotion and frugality of exuberance must be admired. The line HAVE A COKE GOES GOOD WITH FOOD is pure poetry.

!!No shortage of enthusiasm at Shenandoah Plaza!! Eleven, count ’em, eleven exclamation points!! Diced ham emerged in egg and covered by fluffy egg! Emerged? That’s right, emerged!Onion, tomato, ham, cheese and fresh peppers all hidden in the delectable egg exterior! Emerged in egg and delectable egg exterior? Premium bologna! Fascinating.

Sandwiched between a fresh English muffin! Very mysterious stuff indeed. All in one menu, all at one plaza. All in the middle of what looked to be nowhere. East Ohio. So much earnest effort pressed into this menu copy, it could bend your heart. It was a forlorn place, with a tough soul.

Could the package below be more self-effacing? “We are just croutons. Just cubes. Don’t mind us.” Wouldn’t want to overpower the personality of iceberg. Plenty of quiet drama in the kitchens of Interstate 70.

Sandwich Day on 30 Rock.

I cast my vote for best TV show of 2008.
(My vote doesn’t count cause I watched virtually zero television in 2008. I’m still watching 30 Rock’s second season on Netflix and prayin’ season 3 is just as good. How could it not be?!)

From neighborhood correspondent Mike Rhode:

The email subject read Cartoon Geeks on Sandwiches and I thought, “Hmm, they must be on something.”

The Comics Reporter

BONUS NOT COMICS SECTION
1. What is your favorite sandwich?
* Peanutbutter and jelly — Aaron Francis Dumin
* Fried egg, lettuce, tomato, & cheese sandwich–lightly toasted bread, mayo, lots of salt and pepper, egg over easy. — J. Colussy-Estes
* a Rueben and a cold Smitty (I have to wash it down with something, right?) — Ben Ostrander
* muffuletta, especially from the Central Grocery in N.O. — Andrei Molotiu
* Pepper-Mill Turkey with Swiss, lettuce, tomato, spicy brown mustard, and pepper on an everything bagel. — Jeff Ayers
* Triple Cheeseburger Sub with Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato — Timothy Callahan
* My favorite sandwich is prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, roma tomato, basil and olive oil on whatever bread’s fresh, from Molinari’s deli on Columbus in San Francisco — but I’d need two of them, and something fizzy to drink. — Paul Sloboda
* The Cuban sandwich is the height of salty, porky decadence — Rob Clough
* Well, Dagwood’s Sandwich Shoppe is, of course, based on a comic, but I’m not saying this to sneak something into the bonus section! It’s a small chain with maybe twenty stores in the southeast and Indiana. Their Dagwood sandwich is not completely accurate – it lacks spaghetti, fried egg and a lobster, for starters – but it’s a huge beast of a meal you can barely fit in your mouth, full of yummy meat and every fixing in the store. It’s held together with a skewer and an olive placed atop it. Not a sandwich you can tackle daily, but worth it once in a while as a treat! — Grant Goggans
* Peanut butter and jelly — Russell Lissau
* Peanut Butter and Jelly — Jamie Coville
* The chicken, bacon, avocado made by the post-2AM crew at the 79th street deli. Only post-2AM crew counts. — Tucker Stone
* Peanut Butter, Honey + Bacon on a toasted muffin — Marc Arsenault
* Chicken, Ham and Pineapple baguette (white bread), as bought in the Barnes Wallis Restaurant, UMIST, Manchester, in 1994/5. I was nearly run over by drug dealers one time, but damn, was that sammich worth it. — Matthew Craig
* What is your favorite sandwich? Hands down, the peanut butter & jelly (strawberry…I’ve been converted), but I rarely eat it so that I never under-appreciate it. The one I’m particularly fond of is honey maple turkey, swiss cheese or mozzarella, canadian bacon, russian dressing, lettuce, tomato on a bagel (but a roll is fine). — Vito Delsante

I not a tyrant!

He said at about age two. Who is ruling the roast around here, I ask you? The subtext was then, and is still, I mene it!

Who knows what lurks in the minds of kids?

Chaos and order. Keeping the peace between the two. That’s been on my mind lately. Is it a mother thing? Or a woman thing? Or am I simply OCD and out of my mind? So many women I know appear to be stepping lightly through order and chaos. Dodging gently, letting their children become themselves while still shepherding. Sometimes you need a firm hand and a light heart. Other times a light touch and strong heart.

Natural order/the chaos of nature. It’s a constant conflict. Walking the line of imposing order and accepting chaos. Peace in 2009 please.

Plush Toast

When did toast become so CUTE?

In 1982 I had a roommate who ate peanut butter toast each morning. I did not know her well, or rather, she did not know me well since I moved in on her suddenly. Whoops! So… when she did things inexplicable, I let it go, or stored it away in my curiosity bin. Every morning she spread her toast with peanut butter and then spread, spread, spread, HARD, with the butter knife, top to bottom, head to toe, foundation to rafter, till her peanut butter was crumbed, and her toast was thin as cardstock. Smoking all the while.

I  was learning to type on my baby blue Royal Safari and I clacked away, yakking and typing and watching the toast crumbs beg for mercy. Glance at the typing manual, listen to the scraping, glance, wince, glance, clack, scrape, clack, scrape, yak, long drag off the cigarette, clackety-clack.

Those were the days. The days of toast and smoke.

Let’s do lunch. At the gas station! Let’s make a painting. Of the gas station windows! I just love these. Photo-sub-realism.

We pulled in cause the gas was $1.57/gallon, and filled up the tank, all 2 gallons of it. Musta saved at least 14 cents. The lunch club fund is swelling. Before you can say “Light on the mayo” we’ll be tucking crispy paper napkins under our chins and bellying up to the microwave at the Eleven-7 Tire Town.

Ever-Steady Heights Correspondent Mike shot these, then ate them, not both I presume. Mike’s cheesesteaks look so much more luscious to me than those on Abner’s website. Cheesesteaks oughta look loose, like they just got outta bed. Never prim and proper and tucked in tight.

See Abner’s 20 second cheesesteak here.

Me: So, Mike, just how was that cheesesteak?
Mike: It was good. Much better than one I had in northern NJ this weekend. Not especially distinctive, but reasonably priced, fast AND the cook kept a tip area in the corner of the grill.

Proximity is often the most essential element in eating.

See (below) what happens when a stylist intercedes. The artistry is ~vamoose~.

Well, well, well, this is just what I do at work each day. Don’t eat that sandwich!!! It may look tasty – it BETTER look tasty – but there could be a pin or two lurking, or a bit of superglue sealing the cracks in the ham. Life is all smoke and mirrors anyway, is it not? Illusion is our friend. This time of year I do my best to maintain the illusion of sanity. Thank heaven for all the styling aids – make-up, alcohol, accessories, fantasy, strong coffee and disengagement. Serenely smiling I dream on.

And while we are reading of what to dream about…..
WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
Besotted parent story ahead.

Last night, in his sleep, my Teddy said, “If Jack Frost needs help, then help him!”

Merry Christmas everyone. 

With love and respect,

Midnight Snack

I can tell when someone’s been eating Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s cause Santa has his back turned. Punished or sulking? Can only assume he gets turned en route to the edge of the counter and back. My son is quiet with the cookie jar lid, but he leaves tracks.

Because Joe Joe’s are a sandwich cookie, I feel free to talk about them in this forum. So, I’m gonna talk. About Joe Joe’s. About why there is an unnecessary apostrophe in the cookie name. Why is there an unnecessary apostrophe? So odd and out of place.

My generous friend Heidi, who arrives bearing Joe Joe’s, is an apostrophe stickler and these are her words, “I forgive Trader Joe’s, although it makes them seem stupid. Maybe I should write a note.”

Noted.