I had to.
Today I ate an incredibly good sandwich – a great one, even! I didn’t take a picture because I just couldn’t tear myself away once I got my hands on it. It was beautiful, and it was infatuation at first grasp.
Of all the myriad forms a meal can take, to me, the sandwich is the most intimate. The most personal.
The physical act of sandwich eating involves a sort of embrace. You have to wrap your paws around the thing. If it is a good specimen, you will need to grip it with confidence and care, enclosing that delicious, architectural marvel strategically so that no stray morsels fall out before you’re able to slurp them into your maw.
Once I’m holding a good sandwich, I almost never put it down until I’m done.
If I have to free up the right or left hand to take a drink or to eat some accompanying snack, I will… but I prefer to dedicate at least one hand completely to the business of the sandwich. (If you ever see me eat a bacon cheeseburger, you’ll notice it’s true!)
Once I’m holding a good sandwich, it becomes my main focus. My macroscopic world zooms in suddenly to the microscopic melding in a holy union of vegetables and meat, sliding around in a lathery bed of well-spread condiments.
When all of the elements I crave the most come together between two pieces of bread in perfect proportions, eating a great sandwich feels like enlightenment. Sometimes, I can’t stop myself from describing my thorough enjoyment of a great sandwich as having a relationship with the thing. That’s what happened to me today, although it doesn’t typically happen all that often.
Maybe, just maybe, if I lay out a formula for why this one was so good, I can increase my chances of scarfing a similarly artful sandwich in the future. And so, I bring to you my FIVE essential elements for a relationship sandwich:
1. Good tasting bread with desirable texture . Crunchy, seeded, soft and/or any combination of these as long as the texture does not embody the grey areas between these spectrum ideals too much. Bread should not be any thicker than the total thickness of the sandwich contents.
2. A substance that provides creaminess. Mayo, melted cheese, or even a soft non-melted cheese – hummus will do, too!
3. Fresh, crisp vegetables to provide moisture and crunchy contrast. These should be flavorful on their own or lightly dressed (as in a slaw!) and should never rebel against horizontal positioning. They should be able to lie flat without too much sandwich disfiguration or protrusion.
4. A tasty, deliciously seasoned lean meat (an allowable exception being salami or mortadella, etc).
5. One or two other condiments to add more sauciness and another layer of flavor – mustard, bbq sauce, hot sauce, vinegar and oil, etc.
A lot of the choices I made while crafting today’s sandwich were on a whim, so I guess it’s mostly luck that led me to this particular sandwich nirvana. Special thanks must be paid to Wegmans for the Vienna roll and the delightfully spicy Wango Tango sauce (Dinosaur BBQ brand).
I grilled the chicken breast with a little bit of Sensuous Slathering sauce (again, Dinosaur BBQ brand). The red cabbage slaw was:
• thinly sliced red cabbage
• chopped green onions
• chopped parsley (maybe cilantro would be better next time?)
With a dressing of:
• rice vinegar
• a combination of olive, canola, and sesame oils
• a grind of black pepper
• a very healthy sprinkling of celery seeds
• honey
• lime juice
Behold! Sandwich art!
Need a soundtrack? “Hot Thing,” Talib Kweli, Eardrum
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