The Lunch Encounter

Photo by Renee Comet, on a busman’s holiday in Vancouver

According to an xpert, in Vancouver it is:
G Y E R O W. Phonectically spelllowed wrong so u can say it the American way.

Huh? That’s what she said. O…k…. So just what IS the American way, I ask you?

There is a choice to make when you talk about gyro, even if you are in Vancouver and the spelling is gyerow. You can choose the high road and sound pretentious (that will not be me, seeing as I could barely remember how to spell the word). Yero/Euro/Yurow. Like that. Or you can choose the dumb road and sound normal. Jiro/Jyro/Giro. Like that. Arrogant or ignorant. Not much of a choice.

Same goes for pho. Can you say it? Can you bring yourself to bring the inflection uUP at the end? I cannot, not without apologizing for my pretention. On the other hand, there is the noodle tangle in ones brain that wonders, heaven forbid, if folks think you do not know how to say it. How to say it like you are, ahem, in the know. The knoodle know.

Which makes me think of a dinner I had at the Tabard Inn, served to me by someone for whom English was his second language, and American his second culture. I had a shank. A big one. Musta been pork cause it was not dainty. The waiter lowered the plate, arm aching I suspect from the heft of that joint. “Jabba jabba do,” he said, grinning.

Yabba dabba, yabba dabba dabba do now
Yabba dabba, yabba dabba dabba do now
Yabba dabba, yabba dabba dabba do now
I get by on all my prehistoric knowhow.

Must say, that gyro meat looks big enough to be roasted brontosaurus.

No Longer Frozen in Time

Photo by Renee Comet
Styled by Lisa Cherkasky

Ice cream sandwiches may have been updated for the second millenium, but the full Cleveland will always be in a solid state, calcified circa 1972.
In case you do not know, the full Cleveland is sartorially sanctioned only after Memorial Day and before Labor Day. Halle-fullja-lujah, you can trot out that white patent a full week early in 2008 – more Strolling Thunder than Rolling Thunder. Ice cream and white patent leather – Summer begins NOW!

Lunch Encounters of the Third Kind

Do you know how to do this? Meat tray prints are like lino prints cept way easier and less gashing of your palm. This is how I spent an evening letting my mind recover from too much recent managing of minutiae.

Square Sliders! Kinda.
Photo by Michael Pohuski
Styling by Yours Truly

Grilled Ahi Tuna with Tomato and Olive Chutney on Brioche

Just in from Multi-Faceted DC Correspondent Ellen:

Cindy, Heidi and I had lunch at Mark Furstenberg‘s Breadline this afternoon and I photo-documented the trip for your blog. Attached is a not so styled picture of Cindy’s grilled ahi tuna sandwich, and a description direct from Cindy Olson [below]. We wanted to include her in the picture but she wouldn’t allow it. Felt her looks were not up to par because Freya kept her up all night with fake crying. That is the tale of our recent Lunch Encounter!

And the review….

It is always a pleasure to get a nice fresh fish sandwich. It makes me feel like I am at the beach. This was a good one. The fish had a good flavor, the tomato and olive chutney gave it a little kick and the bread was soft and delicious. YUM.

A bit of vicarious lunch-bunching. Thank you.

And I thought only my child fake cried : )

But sure can gush about their actuality. He’s young and he’s hungry.

Sandwich Bored

 
Calvin: Off to the starboard! A mushrooooom! WAAUGHH IT’S AN ATTACKING MUSHROOM! And graaaavyyyyy, slopping over the gunwales! AAAAAHHHH! STICKY! Sploop! Splop! YAHHHH! We’re going dowwwwwwn. The gravy seeps in on all sides. The mushrooms circle closer and closer, sensing distress in the waves above. Another gruesome kill.

These meat ads are getting to me.

Meat landscapes and horizons here and here and here.

Enough about me. Take a look and see what you think about ME! My website has a fresh new look, designed and put to cyber-life by Cindy Olson and Heidi Leech. New images, new writing, new clients. Click here to find out all you can stand about ME!

Oh brother, I am late with this Mother’s Day post. Well, I am a mother, and glad for it, and spent the day with my mother, and with being a mother. Am, with, being, that’s what it’s all about – all the in-betweens, all the getting theres, all the becomings. Deeper, rather than wider. Lay those tracks, spread those roots, build that foundation. And see what sprawls, spreads, reaches, blooms, thrives. To be a good mom, you need short toes (so they do not get stepped on figuratively), a deep lap and a strong tap root.

 No chickens or eggs about it, you have to be a mother before you can be a mother-in-law.

And before you can be a Mother-in-Law Sandwich, you have to be the mother of all corn dishes, a tamale. What goes in a Mother-in-Law sandwich is a tamale generously laced with hot sauce. So generous that the tamale could (almost) be mistaken for a Chicago red hot.

The sublime Miss M gave me the lowdown on this southside sanny: It gets steamed and then it gets bunned. It won’t *POP* when you bite it. It’ll bite when you pop it – in your mouth.

Hot Tamales. Oh Mama! Hot Tamales in a bun. Makes the imagination reel with wonder. This sandwich sets my world in a new orbit, a new orbit flung wide powerfully by…. BREAD. A tamale is just a tamale until you surround it with yeast-raised, wheat-structured, since-the-dawn-of-time, BREAD. Yes, a simple hot dog roll. Yes, just that, a plain, subtle (to put it nicely) hot. dog. roll.

Then they tart it up royally. All mama’s should be accessorized so, to the point of groaning.

The Great American Sandwich Search continues.
On Oprah. Oprah sent her best friend Gayle on a national sandwich dot-to-dot. Lucky girl.

Gayle King, Oprah’s best friend, visits the superlative American sandwich joints chosen by Esquire, eats, chats and rates. Gayle’s snap shots are a fright, about like mine, but she does have swoopy TV hair (probably how she got the gig).

When did sandwiches become such stars? Is it me, or is this celebritization recent?

Okay, hard to swallow any rating given by a woman who
a)doesn’t like lobster
b)never heard of cole slaw on a sandwich
c)sports a big puffy toque, gingerly topping her rock-hard do

Huh? This is the person out in the field eating sandwiches? And rating them?
2 1/2 points for Lobster Grilled Cheese (rather than a top rating of 5) because she doesn’t like lobster. Anyone slinging this kind of power ought to be versed in the difference between “I don’t like it”, and “It’s not good”. Big difference. You’re on the wrong beat, lady.

Perhaps you were home mid-day yesterday and caught Oprah’s Sandwich Showdown on your set, if not, take a look here.
To be frank, celebrity chef anything gets on my nerves. Biting the hand that feeds me, one of my preferred snacks.