Last week Suits-Herself Cindy and I went to hear Tim Kreider read at Upshur Street Books. We’re both fans and were really excited to see him – so excited in fact that we were very early, had time to kill at the adjacent bar and, in a frenzy of enthusiasm, practically knocked Mr. Kreider off his barstool.
My entree into the labyrinth of his mind was through the essay, The Feast of Pain, which I have excerpted here.
LAST week my friend Mishka and I, wistful about a popular sedative of the 1970s that neither of us even got the opportunity to resist the temptation to take, went to search for “Do they still make ’ludes” on the Internet. Before we could finish typing the words “do they” the search engine autofilled “still make quaaludes.”
Sadly, I’ve been advised that this is most likely an artificially inflated search result. But it occurred to me to see what else might be autofilled, as a sort of unscientific poll or cross-sectional sample of my fellow human beings’ furtive curiosity and desires. I typed in “Why am I” and got: so tired/always cold/so ugly? “Why does”: salt melt ice/my vagina itch/it snow? “Where is”: my refund/Sochi/Chuck Norris? “Why can’t”: we be friends/I own a Canadian/I cry? I felt fondly toward all depraved humanity.
According to the calendar, our long, dark winter is over. Yet those five months without light or exercise, hunching our shoulders in pain whenever we stepped outside, bingeing on Netflix, Jiffy Pop and booze, have left us all at the ends of our respective ropes. (Why does it snow?) Now, by the end of it, I find myself inappropriately cheered by glimpses of my fellow human beings’ despair.
Do they still make corn toasties?
The days are longer now and a little warmer, but not really warm enough. Should you need a nourishing and HOT sandwich to start yet another icy and blustery March morning, this one is good. I especially like it when the egg yolk runs down my arm.
Egg and Greens Sandwich
Makes 1 sandwich
1 corn toaster cake*, split and toasted
1 egg
Olive oil for frying, about 1 tablespoon
Salt and pepper, to taste
Large handful of cleaned, chopped kale, spinach, chard or other green of choice
Sriracha sauce, to taste
1 slice cheese – Swiss, Fontina or other cheese of choice
Skim the bottom of a good skillet with olive oil and fry your egg to the doneness you like. I made mine sunny side up.
This is a super nice skillet made by Borough Furnace up in Syracuse.
Salt and pepper the egg, then slide it onto one half of the corn toaster cake.
Add a little more oil to the pan, add the greens and wilt them over medium heat, stirring them as they cook. Season your greens with sriracha and then scoop them up into a heap.
Lay the cheese slice over the greens, turn off the heat and cover the pan. Let the cheese melt.
When the cheese is oozy slide the greens and cheese onto the other toaster cake half. Eat your sandwich right away – open-face or closed.
*Thomas makes Toast-R-Cakes and they are tasty.
The Lunch Encounter 