The Lunch Encounter

* Tuna Fish on Toast

I am fascinated by these ads. Had a euraka moment today when I came upon this one in an In Touch magazine, or perhaps it was Star. In between snaps of an Amy Winehouse stick figure and Misha Barton’s ridiculously doctored derriere. I musta been starvin’ subliminally cause this Moab Meat jumped out at me. “Somebody get me a sandwich!”, I shrieked.

If meats that confuse scale turn you on, look here and here. Food as landscape freaks me out. I hate to think of walking on such a slicked meat surface. The temptation to lick the bottom of one’s shoe would fascinate and repulse a person. Such a compelling dilemma. Ack.

I was in NYC. Almost didn’t make it cause there was a cluster of muck just as I was heading out the door. Tree on the roof, work chaos, power out, small boys and pizza everywhere! Breath in, breath out, pack your bag, make your phone calls, lock the door, hit the road.

Wasn’t really enjoying the spectacle of the lodged tree, folks wandering by snapping pix and gawking. So good to step over the roof shingles and *poof* be gone. Walked away with the sound of the generator humming behind me. Out here beyond rural electrification, off the grid and all.

It’s a true friend who will venture to Queens for a chivito. A Chi-What-O?!? Janie Barnett whispered, “Beware the rogue rhinoceros,” and pressed through the steel-barred turngate to the subway. Our destination…Mi Tio, Steakhouse. 

We didn’t really like the sandwich. Can’t even say for sure that it was good. As a babystep toward a chivito, yes, good, but nothing to mount on the library wall. I had heard of amazing chivitos in its country of origin and wanted to make initial contact. We got a hint, a clue, a vapor of authenticity. Uruguay sieved through a New York kitchen.

Red = Hot. Green = Chimichurri. To the best of my knowledge. 

I was happy to have a vehicle for garlic, oil and parsley. It sure was pretty. Steak AND ham AND cheese AND egg. If it could be fried, it was.  And they stamped my passport too. Can’t say with certainty that the bread coulda and woulda been better in Uruguay, but a girl can dream.

Clearly, we didn’t not like the sandwich. It had potential. Anything with an egg in, on or over it has potential. An egg is the crown of glory.

Saturday night, same weekend, at the first church of rock n roll I gave thanks for life and limb, genuflected to the force of mother nature and the omnipresence of sandwiches, then kissed the hem of safe return.

(While writing this a storm blew over. Did not see hail the size of pennies, as predicted, but the generator coughed, choked and stoked. That 63 db box is my new bff. Time to circulate, resetting clocks. An LED walkabout, watching the periphery for rogue beasts.)

 
Rube Goldberged!
 

Rube Stuff

Consumers Want More Sandwich Variety
This almost reads like an Onion headline, in the sentiment of Nation Says, I’ll Take the Chicken Caesar, cept this one is real. For real. Much drier, not as funny, but kinda interesting. Seems to me we have TOO MUCH variety. I don’t want any more choices. Actually, I would be happy if we just improved on the choices we’ve got. 

New terms I hope to insert into casual conversation:

LSR = Limited Service Restaurant

FSR = Full Service Restaurant

Day-part. As in  “Sandwiches, once viewed as lunch fare, are important to all

dayparts.”

Menu. As a verb. “This presents an enormous opportunity for

operators to menu more innovative sandwich offerings.”

Technomic Finds That Consumers Want More Sandwich Variety

CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–New research from foodservice consultants

Technomic found that though preferences for traditional sandwiches remain

strong, consumers are looking for greater variety in sandwich ingredients

available from limited- and full-service restaurants. A survey of more than

1,500 consumers revealed that over one third (39 percent) of those eating at

LSRs and 51 percent at FSRs were not fully satisfied with available sandwich

options, wanting new and unique ingredient offerings, flavors and

combinations.

 Technomic’s Sandwich Consumer Trend Report combines the results of

extensive quantitative consumer research, menu analysis from its proprietary

MenuMonitor database and restaurant data from its Top 500 Report to generate

fresh and timely insights into the sandwich segment.

 Among the more interesting findings of the report:

    •      Sandwiches continue to be a strong mainstay of restaurant fare,

making up 31 percent of all limited-service restaurant entrees and 15

percent of entrees at full-service restaurants.

    •      Bold flavor profiles and the use of artisanal and premium breads,

ingredients and sandwich spreads are growing trends in sandwich

differentiation. The sandwich concept itself allows for a great deal of

innovation as well as portability to meet the needs of consumers on the go.

    •      The sandwich segment is appealing to health-conscious consumers

through offering high-quality, fresh, local and organic ingredients.

Consumer interest in healthy sandwich ingredients continues to grow, with 44

percent of consumers wanting sandwiches made with locally-grown ingredients

and 30 percent with organic ingredients.

    •      Sandwiches, once viewed as lunch fare, are important to all

dayparts. Toasted sandwiches and paninis are increasing in popularity as

entrée options in the dinner daypart, while the portability of breakfast

sandwiches boosts breakfast daypart sales. Sandwiches are also gaining

ground in the growing away-from-home snacking segment.

“Sandwiches are growing in share in all dayparts while consumers are asking

for more variety in sandwich selections,” says Darren Tristano, Executive

Vice President of Technomic Information Services. “Given strong consumer

trends toward healthy eating and an increasing consumer appetite for bolder

flavors and premium ingredients, this presents an enormous opportunity for

operators to menu more innovative sandwich offerings.”

Researched and reported by Mrs. Whippppeeeessss!

words words words words words words words words words words words words

Sandwiches give license to loquacity and silly names. Barking for the sake of barking. Words you want to rollll around your mouth repeatedly. Cause it feels so good.

Some sandwich names that slide like warm butter off my tongue…

TheParmegeddon is served at Melt Bar and Grilled – A place from which you would not want to be barred.

Double R Bar Burger is something I could NOT bring myself to order at the driver’s ed graduation lunch at Roy Roger’s cause the name was so awkward and dumb, like a teenager. When you say it, your voice reverberates with twannnggg. Sheesh, we went to Roy’s. That was the reward for driving our first highway – in a BLIZZARD. I recall that Sharon Goodspeed, petit little thing that she was, ordered a child’s size burger and a mini-fry. Not me. I was nerve-damaged and starved. I’d order it now – TWICE just to say it – if I ever stepped foot in a Roy’s.

Gurueben was the greasebomb of choice, during my late night high school daze, served at the Booeymonger when it was a hole in the wall and I thought I was the coolest little dish since sliced pastrami. The gureuben is no longer on the menu, although the Patty Hearst has endured.

Midget Muscovite was whispered to me by My Main Sandwich Man in NYC in reference to a New Jersey Sloppy Joe. So gullible, I believed this was the actual name of an actual sandwich, but nahhh, it was just JAF barking for the sake of barking. I bit. And I laughed. It’s a wich with just a little Russian. He’s concerned that midget is an outdated term. I dunno, is it?

Love these names. Love saying these words.

So true. By Bruce Eric Kaplan

My main sandwich man in NYC, JAF, writes: Ordered in from Arties’ Deli last night – a big combo sandwich with pastrami, rare roast beef, turkey, Swiss, coleslaw and Russian dressing on rye.  I should have taken a photo of it for you – it was artfully constructed by a professional deli man.  
It reminded me an Allan Sherman’s parody of “Comin Thro’ The Rye”.

Do not make a stingy sandwich
Pile the cold cuts high
Customers should see salami
Comin’ through the Rye 

And the original? Look here.      

From the incandescent
Doug Michels: visionary architect: from a doll’s house to the White House, from Cadillacs buried in Texas to dolphin-astronauts swimming in space, architect Doug Michels’s visions embraced big ideas in the most individualistic, awe-inspiring, and mind-expanding ways.

Chicago is RED HOT when it comes to eating. I was there for what felt like a minute and a half and put away 11 meals with great happiness. Smudges in one corner of the weekend’s napkin reveal DNA from:

◊ A Mother-in-Law Sandwich at Johnny O’s in Bridgeport.

◊ A Teuben at Hot Doug’s where they serve Green River pop and folks line up for days.

◊ A jibarito  (actually two, cold – at two am) from Borinquen, in the kitchen under the cool, dim cast of the hood bulb.  

◊ And hillocks of huitlecoche and chicharron sandwiched between handpatted tortillas (the former) and lovingly formed masa (the latter).

“Masalicious!” was the word from my urban-intrepid HoStEsS.

For not much more than 14¢ you can take a world tour of eats, ricocheting about through the 1st, 2nd and 3rd worlds faster than you can say, “I’ll take one with everything.”

A Teuben, by the way, is brilliant: Corned Beef Sausage with Russian Dressing, Sauerkraut and Swiss Cheese.

And while we’re talking Chicago, which means we are just 2 degrees of separation from a hot dog…

HOT DOG HAUTE DOG
Chicago chefs welcome summer by putting their own spin on a Chicago fave. 

By Bill Daley Tribune critic                
May 28 2008      

Classic Chicago-style hot dogs are legendary, with their all-beef snappiness, poppy seed buns, neon-green relish and racy little sport peppers. It’s the summertime nosh of choice for many, residents and visitors alike. But there are times a classic needs updating.

Photo by Dan Whipps
I did this lately. ok, it’s just a burger. the fries are nice though. and those water droplets on the mater are inspired. ha! pretty good meat too, I’m tellin’ ya. from Roseda Beef in B-more. Very meat-centric outfit with deliciously marbled hunks of dense, neanderthal MEAT.

Coating the bread with spraymount and sprinkling it with sesame seeds, my hand took a tacky layer too. Looked real creepy, the sesame seeds being my skin tone and all, and I thought it would be good, on October 31 to spray my hands and wrists and neck, then sprinkle liberally. Itchy, no doubt, but very scary. My luck, there would be no solvent in the house and I’d be wearing sesame skin for days and days and days, ducking for cover when birds were in sight.