The Lunch Encounter

Rebecca: This is so bad it’s almost good.

Enid: This is so bad it’s gone past good and back to bad again.

Panini is out. That’s what I read in the Washington Post.

I actually made these panini. For the Hamilton Beach panini press package. Boy, they sure do look clean. Squeeeeeek. Like they’ve had a good spraydown with Psssssst. (Count. It’s the right number of s’s.)

Bánh Mí is in. Check out Song Que in Falls Church, VA and Banh Mi in Annandale, VA. You can look at my Banh Mi post here.

Oh also! (You are so welcome for keeping you current.) Gouda is out. Burrata is in. If you have to ask what Burrata is? Well. No comment. Salami is out. Red Wattle Sausage is in. What the hell is Red Wattle Sausage?

Some things old are new again. This phrase, so out of date, “I’ll have what you are serving,” makes my heart skip with joy. Aah, to eat what you are served. How fine. How civilized. Food is, after all, an offering, requesting an extension of trust, a bridge crossed. The suspicions of childhood put to rest. Ha! Could I be more deluded? And I’m not just talking about the under 21 crowd.

“Please don’t dissect your food,” I say to my son and his friends. Please don’t disassemble it. That piece of bread you are poking full of holes? The earth grew the wheat, the wheat was harvested, turned to flour, carried to the bakery, baked into bread, packaged, carried, sold, brought home by me with the money I earned, unwrapped, made into a sandwich, carried to the table and given to you. Please don’t disassemble it. “Please don’t poke it full of holes.” Eyes rolling around the table. Sheesh, mom. And guys, that’s just the bread, for your information.

What would I like in the new year? To hear, “I’ll have what you are serving,” or simply benefit from its practice.

Could I not have to make picnic sandwiches with everything tasty on the side – mayonnaise, mustard, horseradish, pepper? Would it be all right if I chose your bread for you? Could you trust me a teensy bit? Could I put the green stuff ON the sandwich. And maybe go wild with a little onion? And would you please, please, please say, “Oh, thank you. Delish!” and eat it up? It’s an old-fashioned notion, I know, and sounds so fresh and new again. Here! Here!

Peace in the New Year. Starting at the table.

The Transcultural Exchange builds round-the-world ties that bind.

Blue and White Carry-Out in the Parker-Gray neighborhood of Alexandria, VA is en route to my mother’s place and an irresistible quick stop. The parking meters beckon to me, their stubby steel fingers crooked, as I approach that intersection. All shut up tight and cozy it was, on New Year’s Eve 2007.

And here it is clean shaven and fresh-faced through the lens of MarieMcC.

Read my post about the pork chop sandwich here.

Every town needs a One Cold Hand chapter.

I’ve got a pair of grey ladies’ gloves hanging in the lowest crook of a tree out front, where I put them after picking them out of the gutter. Musta dropped out of a driver’s lap when she got out. My hope that they will be reunited with two cold hands is fading, as they have been hanging limply for over two weeks. Each rainfall decreases their desirability.

In the meantime, I hope their owner has one hand wrapped around a toasty hot sandwich and the other around a stinging hot cup of coffee.

The airwaves of Madison, Wisconsin carried Music From the True Vine, my three hours of audio euphoria, Wednesday afternoons in the late 70’s. One afternoon, while reading a LOST PARAKEET ad, the phone jangled. Found parakeet! A sweet reunion of human and bird was arranged, and my week found its high water mark.

December 24 I was a birthday girl and happy recipient of Secret Ingredients, The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink. Today, Christmas chaos beginning to fade, I spent some incredibly pleasant time with my new book in early morning darkness, hot coffee on the adjacent window sill, duvet snugged all around, small boy still sleeping the sleep that recalls no dreams.    

From one of my knitting pals: 

I had a lovely sandwich experience while on my way to the airport in Phoenix a couple years ago. A well-connected, restaurant friend there told me to try La Grande Orange, and what a treat! I can’t remember the exact sandwich I had, but I believe it was some version of pesto/tomato/mozzerella, and it was delicious. The atmosphere was hectic and delightful (since I wasn’t in a big rush) and it was fun to do a bit of shopping for specialty items (I found some gridded, wire-bound Rhodia notebooks) while I stood in line.

Heidi L  

LA GRANDE ORRRRRANNNNNNGE 

Tis the season for citrus. I do miss the large box of oranges and grapefruit of my childhood that arrived annually with a large thud on the porch. My grandparents, children of Wisconsin-settled, Scandinavian and German immigrants, packed their things and resettled in Orlando in the 50’s, dreaming of sand-paved streets and owning their own little piece of commerce, a restaurant.

Their cinderblock, truncated rambler sat on a corner lot shaded by fruit trees and, until the thorough freeze of 1989, we were shipped a seam-bursting carton each year. There were a few blood oranges mixed in with the oranges and grapefruits which fanned the gambling flames in me, compelling me to peel and eat till I struck pay dirt. There was a hole in the floor of the unheated porch where the unmovable box sat hard. The hole was round and big enough to accomodate a dozen’s peelsworth, and so we stuffed ’em down it.

• The Southern Food and Beverage Wiki is up!!

Featured on the site is Matzoh Ball Gumbo, Culinary Tales of the Jewish South, by Marcie Cohen Ferris, edited by the extremely capable Miriam Rubin.

Chapter 1, There’s No Place Like Home, page 1: Ms. Ferris writes about Blytheville, Arkansas. There was the Dixie Pig, where you could order barbecue chopped, shredded, plate-style, or a “white pig sandwich with cheese,” possibly one of the most nonkosher combinations in the world.

This is a lovely book, a dream of a read, loaded with fascinating photographs and, hazarding a guess, an eye-opening education for most of us.

• Miriam and I cooked together about a bazillion years ago at Le So Fab Pavillion . Whew. Glad those days are behind me and I lived to tell the tale. Just about died from the exhaustion of cranking out about a bazillion half-inch carrots and turnips – seven sided and one-eighth-inch wided. And that was just in the first 3 minutes of each double shift.
• Read Miriam’s lovely Passover story for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here.
• Poked around a bit on the SoFab site with muffulettas, po-boys and oyster loaves in mind, and found this (a very nonkosher recipe, and out of season to boot), from New Orleans Chef John Besh:

“BLT” Buster Crab, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich

Serves 1, Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 each buster crab, cleaned

2 tsp. aioli

1 pinch micro greens

1 slice brioche, toasted

¼ c mixed red, yellow and green grape tomatoes, peeled

1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil

1 dash 25-year-old balsamic vinegar

1 pinch minced chive

¼ c cornmeal

¼ c seasoned flour

¼ c canola oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

In a sauté pan heat the canola oil over a medium high flame. Season the buster crab with salt and pepper. Toss into a mixture of seasoned flour and cornmeal. Place the crab into the hot canola oil and allow cooking for one minute on each side.

Season the tomatoes with salt, pepper, vinegar, chive and extra virgin olive oil. Place the tomatoes over a well- toasted brioche crouton and place onto a serving plate.

After cooking the buster crab, remove and allow it to drain over some absorbent towels for a moment. Place the crab over the tomatoes and top it with a dollop of aioli, which you in turn cover with a pinch of micro greens or any lettuce sprout.

To Serve:Garnish the plate with additional chopped chives, chive oil and beet juice if you please.

Mmmm. Beet juice. Mmmm. I do please.

• 
• (That’s a mighty big sandwich for a Boston terrier. Do you think he knows he’s got that bow tie on?)
•  A: She lies awake at night wondering if there really is a dog. Or, in my case, she gets up in the middle of the night and semi-sleep walks to the kitchen, fixes a sandwich and chews it slowly in the dark, thinking that if there were a god she would be less worried about the afterlife and sleep better. But my demons fall into the OCD, atheistic, insomniac sphere. So all bets are off on the God thing.
• I read in the NY Times food section (August 22, 2007) that, “food and the environment is the civil rights movement for people under the age of 40,” and that folks are “farming for the soul”, in other words, in the name of God.

On the second day God created the dog. God said, “Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. I will give you a life span of twenty years.” The dog said, “That’s too long to be barking. Give me ten years and I’ll give you back the other ten” So God agreed. 

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• “John Thorne’s Mouth Wide Open is a journey around his own kitchen,” writes Linda Kulman in Insatiable Appetites, her recent review of current cookery books for holiday giving. Mr. Thorne’s “exhaustive essays, most of which were previously published in his food letter, Simple Cooking, tackle all manner of dishes, including some, like fried eggs, that might seem beneath consideration.” 
• Or the Bacon and Dandelion Sandwich eloquently considered in Serious Pig, Mr. Thorne’s 1996 bedside-table-grounding book. It anchored my bedside table for a full summer. John Thorne’s writing enthralls me. I can’t imagine a food more worth consideration than a fried egg. Unless it’s a fried egg sandwich, which one would have to call a dish rather than a food.
• It must be noted that on the Simple Cooking site there is a section headed up Midnight Snacks. Here is a review of Mouth Wide Open.
• File under Fluffernutter: Linda is a friend of mine, but obviously I have not investigated her past closely enough. Googled her just now and came upon the story of her courtship and marriage to Ralph Alswang in Weddings:Vows, the NY Times Style column. Now that got my attention. Surprised I missed it the first time around. Had she been on the front page and I had missed it – totally understandable as I turn straight to the fluff.  Need I say more about the depth of my intellect? You could drown in it, if you believe that a person can drown in an inch of water.
• An appetizer from the Vows piece: Mr. Alswang, 33, says he fell in love with her there and was especially taken by her stylish black coat and her appetite. ”I said to her, ‘Can I get you something?’ ” he remembered. ”And out of her mouth came, ‘I want a chili dog with the works.’ ” He added, ”Then, like an old pro, she got this huge chili dog into her mouth, while holding a drink. I thought, ‘That’s an amazing person.’ ”