The Lunch Encounter

NY Latino Journal, Breaking Through to the Other Side

Forty years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop“, followed by his assination in Memphis, Bomani Armah writes in his story, Okay, Barack. Now Show ‘Em Your White Side, (The Washington Post, March 23, 2008),

Barack Obama is as white as he is black. Staffers need to start snapping as many pictures as possible of him putting mayonnaise on his sandwiches and shaking hands straight up and down (no more low-fives that evolve into a shake with that pat on the back).

As white as he is black. How do we gauge what is embedded in each of us? Are we what we eat? Multi-faceted all, are we not? I don’t think you can expose one side without the light of your other facets shining through.

Black enough or white enough does not concern me. Is he man enough?

Here is Obama making tuna fish sandwiches and using…..mayonnaise!

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. …. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. …Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 3, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee  

Isn’t this so beautiful? For a burger in particular. Shot by an isn’t-she-so-talented photographer. Taran Z.

(Styled by me.)

I used to say, and probably still say, “isn’t this so cute?” about stuff, whatever. And my son, my testosterone-fueled, wipes-my kisses-off-his-face-while-sleeping, mesmerized-by-fire-power son, would say, in an effort to ingratiate himself to the person who was and is wildly in love with him, “Isn’t that so cute, mom?”. He didn’t know. Cute? Is that a word?

Wow, roast beef cliffs, unidentifiable foam embankments, and parsley that has never looked so bedraggled. I believe my appetite is beyond lost. It is MIA with no dog tags.

What gives with the steady stream of bizarre food ads??

In reference to my favorite off-color joke, let’s saunter down there and get us some roast beef for sandwiches. There is no beautiful urgency in the “land of lean beef”

Truly it’s more of a handwave. Call it the Sandwich Shove, or the Frame Finagle or the Pastrami Push. Any way you slice it, this is the universal gesture signaling dedication to eating with your hands.

James Farber demonstrates his sandwich devotion above. Caught him redhanded and had to laugh. In this one simple act he coined a new language. It’s a sign. An all encompassing sign.

When your digits are too slick for frame adjustment, and napkin use is too much of a lunch encounter speedbump, you got to put your wrists to work. They should be clean, after all, even if you are up to your elbows in Katz’s pastrami.

Katz’s Delicatessen

Life is so beautiful sometimes, particularly when the scent of pastrami is in the air. Had the good fortune to encounter lunch at Katz’s and to be in a crush of like-minded sandwich loving souls. Two at our table, the two who had been around the block on odd sodas, drank Cel-Ray. Fries all around. Same went for slaw. Both full and half sours splashed down early on setting my heart a-thump.

Stuffed to fluttering, the tip cup’s sign said “NO TIPS”. The pastrami cognoscenti briefed me. The white capped deli guy exposes the fatty side, you squash a buck or two into the cup, *flip* ~whack~, the lean side is revealed and graciously carved. Right before your very eyes, the beautiful build of a superlative, glorious-in-its-plainness, pastrami sandwich.

Under duress we were pressed into table service. Clutching our tickets we self-shepherded to a table along the wall. The price of sitting? A bit more fat in the cut of our sandwich fill. Or so we feared, suspiciously eyeing adjacent sandwiches. Just across the narrow aisle sat those whose timing had funneled them through the carving line, where they could scrutinize each slice as it slid greasily off the knife onto the rye pile.

Photo by food snapshot artist Eric “Roscoe” Ambel

The women did the girlie thing and split a wich – we had Magnolia Bakery cupcakes on our minds for later. Had I known the line at Magnolia would be 100 strong I would have ordered my own damn sandwich. So prim, that little half, although it’s palm-lubricating power was ample, and heavens it was so delicious. Writing this, I relive that firm crumbed rye and thready, softly salted, unctuous meat. Pastramied heaven.

James asked me at least half a dozen times if I had my ticket – see the blue billets in the picture? – and each time I had a petit-panic. Without the magic ticket, you may not leave, or so I was threatened. What a fate, a deli eternity.

Had a lovely lunch with my Aged P at M M M Me Jana last week. Lebanese lunch. Mmmmm.

The man knows how to live, let me tell you. One big adventure is how he looks at it. Waiting to find out what happens. He can do some damage to a mess ‘o fries, too.

Schawarma like I have never seen it. Very hifalutin. Although I have a Pavlovian schawarma association with the sensation of juice running down my arm, this one got me going with deliciousness murmurs. Sans napkin. Neatly gorgeous and seductively scrumptious.

Thought I should check the lyrics for My Sharona before posting this, and did. I’m horrible on lyrics and am often taken by surprise by reading the actual, as opposed to going with the imaginary. Well huh… the lyrics to My Sharona are not really the thing to reference in conjunction with a fun lunch with Dad. Reminds me of the scene in Arrested Developement when the dad steps up for karaoke with his niece and chooses Afternoon Delight. Damn, My Sharona is pretty darn suggestive.

My friend Jane says, “Punks. Long Island punks,” with amused disgust.

My father will laugh. I hope.

Does this answer my spelling quandary? Who you gonna believe?

I like it with the extra c. Makes you make the sound you make when wrapping your mouth around a big messy sch sch sch schawarmmmmma. See, it is WARM in the middle any way ya spell it.

Susan Costner, the author of “Great Sandwiches,” revels in both the infantilism of late-night eating and the luxuriousness of it. Sometimes she’ll cut a Granny Smith apple into six or eight rounds and smear them with peanut butter and coconut, then reassemble the apple. When she’s feeling a bit more romantic, she tends toward a sandwich of sauteed asparagus and scrambled eggs on toasted Italian bread. “There’s something sensuous about scrambled eggs at night,” she says.

Food; Sweet Dreams (I should say so!)

Read it all here.

Scrambled Hotdog/Buffalo Chicken Sandwich/Chivito

I want to eat these things and am going to have to travel for it. Hope to make a stab at a Chivito in Queens. Betcha I can’t get a single New Yorker to accompany me on a trip to Queens for a sandwich that draws worldwide raves. Can’t get a Chivito in my environs. Queens is closer to me than Uruguay, and I’m willing to get myself to NYC, but I expect I will be venturing alone once I get there. We’ll see if I can coerce anyone into packing a survival kit and bushwhacking with me.

The Chivito Sandwich

I might have better luck finding a sandwich mate for Miami reconnaissance.

Next up, Buffalo for the elusive Buffalo Chicken Sandwich…Pittsburgh, sandwich hotbed, is between here and there.