The Lunch Encounter

“Sheep Dip” conjures up beauty parlor images for me. Thinking swanky, shiny curls amassed around a lipsticked face.

Dip is such a cute word.

Been thinking dips due to Dan and his post Dip It Good.

It’s about time Philippe’s was acknowledged at the Lunch Encounter. Genuflection.

Photo courtesy The Gingerbread Girl

Made one foray, nearly two decades behind me now, to Philippe the Original with my bike boxed and train-bound. The original home of the French Dip is across from the gorgeous Union Station in LA. If you are gonna ride, carve out an hour avant departure for a sandwich. Philippe’s held us for day one of a three-day railride.

In Milwaukee recently, I found a certified Dip. Sanctioned. By me. I followed in the meaty footsteps of hoards. At Benji’s. It’s the old Meat-N-Three, French-Dip-mathwise. Beef + Bread, Horseradish and Jeu.

It’s something alright!!
Just what exactly I cannot say….

What’s up with all the meat disguised as anything but meat?

A hotdog with a bit of meatsauce can be a lovely thing. Witness New York Systems in Providence, RI, hashslinging alma mater to David Byrne. They serve not only hot wieners (!) but coffeemilk too, part of the Rhode Island culinary microclimate.

The Yayhoos (see the oos part on my shirt to the right?) are my second favorite band. And that was before I knew about their attachment to the Wienermobile.

The wienermobile fueling up was posted and ~bing~ this image came through on my Blackberry. Synchron-oscar-icity! Eric “Roscoe” Ambel looks proud of his midwestern heritage. Uff-dah!

My Plimptonesque dream is to drive a series of novelty vehicles: 

•Wienermobile
•Zamboni
•Popemobile (they’ll never let me drive that)
•Staircar
•Phantom Dreamcar*

Spotted the Wienermobile parked in front of the White House about 10 years ago and strolled up to take a closer look. Heavens, what a mess! Looked like a bunch of 19-year-old guys had been riding around for weeks and weeks. Dash all strewn with sun-faded wrappers, torn maps and sticky bits. Cassettes with ribbons of tape pulled free, “Wiener Jingle” chicken-scratched on one label. 

*
More on the Phantom Dream Car (driven by my friend Doug Michels) later… True brilliance.

Beautiful, exuberant and feral. A living, breathing satyr, Jim Rapp gleamed, glowed and grinned in his 20 year prime. He was and is without fear. Perhaps a bit of fear would have tempered his recklessness. Who will ever know?

He’s up in Buffalo now, under the gloomy skies, ziggety-zaggety diced-and-sliced by tip-toed electric power paraphenalia.  Jim is…Jim and not Jim. Reduced and concentrated. 

Had I not known him, I would not recognize my life as my own, although the admission price should have caused a person with their wits about them to scream “Uncle”. Jim has been to the well and back and I toted the bucket for a time, walking with one arm outstretched to prevent spills.

My sister was kind enough to go with me to Buffalo for the weekend. Man alive, did I need her company. 

Buffalo shoulda, coulda, woulda been a grander, wealthier, more highly polished city had things been managed better from the get go. Instead, it slumps a little and delapidation seems to lurk at corners. Still and all, there are miles of tidy neighborhoods, aswag with window boxes and trimmed shrubbery.

And they have BEEF ON WECK! 

At Schwabl’s! 

We had schemed with beef on weck radared.

Gentile, sturdy, a proverbial step-back, at Schwabl’s you are greeted by a front-of-the-house professional, a gentleman of a certain age in a pristine butcher-style coat. Coated and goateed, the night we were there.

At Schwable’s medium-rare means bloody. We went round and round with our waitress until we had her worked into a bit of a snit. Or a schnit. A nice, friendly schnit. 

Niceness rules in Buffalo and we were glad for it. Me in particular, as I was worn to a  frayed thread from my DC week.

Our dinner was delicious by light years beyond our expectations. And our expectations were high. We did talk during our meal, but not much. Only for pacing. 

Hurt-your-teeth-crunchy salt on top of the kimmelwecks, and caraway seeds aplenty. Never liked them as a kid. Now they taste complex and make me feel comfortably ma-ture, more finished. That stuff, the stuff that doesn’t look so pretty…deluxe stuff. Vinegary, bacony German potato salad. That ain’t no salad, nosirree. Pickled beets and itty bitty pickle straddle the salad fence. Close enough for me. Love em both.

Add horseradish galore, put your head down and get serious.
Miss Bev Nap looks lovely, does she not? Who could set a sweaty beer glass on her ruffles?

“There’s a world you’re living in No one else has your part.” N Young

Hot Dog! A History of Chicago Foods

Tuesday, April 15, 7:00 p.m.

Everyone knows that Chicago is famous for great foodstuffs such as hot dogs and deep dish pizza. Whatare the origins of these delicacies and how did they evolve into the yummy treats we know today? What other goodies were invented in Chicago and how did the Windy City become an ethnic cuisine capital?

Join Museum historian Sarah Marcus and our panel of experts, including Monica Eng of the Chicago Tribune, and Bruce Kraig and Peter Engler of the Culinary Historians of Chicago, as they give you a taste of Chicago’s food history.

Arrive early to enjoy free Chicago-style hot dogs, courtesy of Vienna Beef, from 6:15–7:00 p.m.

Cost: $10; $8 members.

It’s a process. And it takes almost as long as producing one new penguin.

My oven was on for hours and hours and hours. Filled the house with a cozy, herbalicious scent. It was worth it. And the house didn’t burn down.

The last stove…well, porchetta probably would not have cut the mustard. The fire department guys had been by at least twice with their caution tape and slathered it liberally across the front of the oven door. As they rode off happily in the hook-n-ladder I peeled and crumpled the tape and turned the gas back on at the wall. Long as a burner was flaming, the leak would be absorbed. That’s how I figured it. Very, very childproof, seeing as you needed a bit of muscle power to twist that gas cut-off valve.

Read all about how to do it up here:

Put A Little Italy in Your Pork Roast

You wouldn’t think that bbq sauce would be part of the manifesto, but it is. Interesting.

I took this picture and it’s not too bad, actually. The light in my kitchen is so nice – surroundsound light. 

When I ascend to the throne, Virgin Proclamation: Get Rid of Those Stupid Plastic Boxes for Herbs! Long, graceful stalks contorted to fit a teensy, see-through case. All busted up and cracked in pieces. Don’t like it and it seems unnecessarily cruel.

Renee Comet took this beautiful picture and the one below, too. She has the huge advantage of not depending on luck (like me).

This is what you do to embed the pork shoulder with deep and abiding fla-vah. Score it. More surface for enhancement, embellishment, taste-adornment. Then cook it. Slowly. For ages.

And whaddya get? A sandwich. It’s a journey.

Last spring, in the central, frigid days of March, I had the pleasure of sharing an 8×8 foot cabin for 3 days and nights with the hilarious Karen Barry Schwarz, who had been a stranger prior. Did not get much shut-eye as Karen warms up around midnight and her humor hones on a half-sleeping funny bone.

The powers that be had no trouble matching us as cabin-mates seeing as we were the only two women on this rock-n-roll-esque retreat. Minus the verboten drugs and alcohol. (No wonder I couldn’t sleep.)

(Styling by me. Can you believe this is a job? For French Meadow, a very cool, all organic baking outfit.)

Did you know that Bread is Dangerous?
Let Karen enlighten you.

Ed Moose Savage‘s new album on the Guinea Pig label includes Bread is Dangerous and the “monumental hit” Iceberg Lettuce.

At the end of our weekended close encounter Karen said to me, “I was dreading you.” Ha.

Quite white, isn’t it?
Is mayonnaise the food of undesire? Is it a testosterone-free zone?

Washington Post reporter Bomani Armah’s comment that Obama should put more mayonnaise on his sandwiches struck me as racist or sexist or somehow icky. Okay, it was tongue in cheek, but still…

Since then I heard a report from a man who, due to a medical condition, had been utterly depleted of testosterone. Without testosterone you are without desire. Of any kind. For any thing. The man claimed that during his testosterone-free stretch he did not care about anything. He did not care what he ate. Wonder bread covered with mayonnaise would have been fine, he said.

By proclaimining Obama should “show ’em his white side”, perhaps Bomani Armah is asking the candidate to tone down his masculinity. His virility. Somehow this doesn’t sit right with me. Just sayin. We all know the stereotypes in question.

What do virile men put on their sandwiches? Metal shavings? Unrefined petrol?

“Toast” is coming, a dark Crazy Horse classic for the ages. This first NYA “Special Edition” is the beginning of a new series of unreleased albums.

More here on I’m Nobody! Who R U?

Are you crazy for Neil Young? Admittedly, I am not, but hope someday to crack the code and enter his world. I’m certainly crazy for enough of his devotees. Two degrees of separation, no wait, only one degree, makes me crazish. Close enough.