I've done it again

Partially inspired by my own recent listicle here and also by Action Cookbook’s absolute banger of a newsletter recently, I have taken a few hours to consider, claim, catalog the ten most important sandwiches of my life. Culinarily, perhaps they’re not award winners. All the same, they stand out in my mental lexicon of sammies as critical instances of their respective categories. (I tried to look up the word "exemplar", because it has been many years since I’ve had to discuss the mental lexicon or phonemes, and I gave up because I did not wish to re-read everything I briefly digested back in 2008. Sorry not sorry!)

10. A saucisson sec sandwich, Montpellier, France, 2009. 
Never in my umpteen trips to France did I feel more like Netflix’s Emily in Paris than with this meal, a total American boob. I had landed in southern France for a linguistics conference after an absurd itinerary that was the result of last-minute planning. I had a few years of French instruction under my belt, and so I read the menu and confidently ordered the saucisson, a sausage sandwich. It showed up, and it was not a hot sausage of the sort I expected, but sec, dry, effectively a cold salami. Yet it was better than what I had expected, and a good deal. Because of course it was. Would I bumble again with my weak language abilities? Absolutely. Would I get schooled in new ways? Yes. Would I have a bizarre set of circumstances on this trip involving my bank and the French police? Also yes. 

9. The Elvis at Nathaniel Square Corner Store, Rochester, New York, 2010.
This concoction: Peanut butter, banana, and bacon on grilled sourdough with Frank's Red Hot sauce. It was a messy staple for me in 2009-10, particularly as I worked messy spring hours writing my messy dissertation. The corner store featured made-to-order sandwiches, great beers, and single rolls of toilet paper for the low price of “the change in my couch.” It was the kind of place I could go in my pajamas and then manage to hang out for 10 minutes with the staff, Jon & John & Jay. I crashed John’s wedding at some point.

A few months later I’d find myself explaining the Elvis, using a rudimentary vocabulary in Dutch class, to a Spanish guy who’d previously served in his country’s air force and a German-Japanese infant cognition researcher who’d later coincidentally move to Philadelphia. Both found the peanut butter baffling and the whole concoction gag-inducing to even hear about. 

8. The egg and sausage and peppers and onions and hot sauce and mayo at Rocco’s, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, present day.  
I’ve written about the Rocco’s at Home Depot before, maybe too much. It’s a rare treat of a sandwich for me. I picked one up on a gray pre-pandemic December when I was overwhelmed by the holidays and needed some alone time. I was in the Home Depot parking lot when I got the text that my best friend's daughter was born that morning. I’ve had several in-person conversations this week (and it’s only Wednesday!) about this sandwich and its charming placement.

7. A chicken parmesan sub at Aniello’s, Corning, New York, 1997. 
Some evenings in high school I had too many activities scheduled. I’m sure many of you can relate. My mom would graciously drive me from my viola lesson to play practice and pick up a hot Aniello’s sub en route, because otherwise what could I possibly have for dinner?  As the assistant stage manager, I could sit in the front row and munch during scenes until somebody called “line” or the director bellowed about blocking. One time, my friend Danny P took a bite of my sandwich while I wasn’t looking, and I lost my mind at him. I was hangry. 

Here we must include a related honorable mention: I don’t remember the menu at Frills of New York on Market Street in Downtown Corning but they had a great weird range of plant-based options before it was cool, as well as some creative (let’s be honest, stoned while jamming to Donna The Buffalo) combinations of toppings that were maximalist. Some days those subs hit all the right notes. 

6. A Reuben at Famous Fourth St Deli, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2011. 
I visited Philly about once a year before I moved here. On a Christmas trip, I managed to squeeze in as much as I could: a massage, my first trip to John’s Roast Pork, meeting some babies. I took myself to Famous Fourth Street and did my damnedest to eat everything on the menu. Alas, I took the better part of a Reuben back to my friend Andy’s apartment and left it in his wee fridge as I bopped around. Some hours later, I was getting on a train to DC, and Andy called me. He opened the call with “You magnificent bastard!” I was fuzzy on what I’d done to deserve this epithet. I feared the worst. “I just came home from work and there’s a Famous Fourth Street Reuben in my fridge? Incredible!” I sometimes wish I’d remembered to take that half with me on the train. But if I had, Andy wouldn’t have called to yell joyously about it.

5. Pulled pork sandwich with a side of sweet potato fries, San Diego, California, 2011
For a while, I attended the semi-annual Acoustical Society of America conferences. Sometimes I even presented my work at them! I snagged the trip to San Diego as part of a vacation to New York in order to be in a wedding. This makes more sense if you note that I was living in Europe at the time, so San Diego was closer to New York than we normally think of it. But the sandwich! I enjoyed numerous meals at this conference, but importantly, I found myself at an otherwise-unremarkable barbecue spot with my conference pal Peggy. I said before the server came over that I was looking forward to having fries with the pulled pork, both treats for me. She gently prodded, “While you’re here, are you sure you don’t want the sweet potato fries? Aren’t those more American?” She was right. 

4. Pan bagnat, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2021.
“ANOTHER French sandwich? NEIL!” There’s a few variations on this, apparently, but the Smitten Kitchen recipe is my go-to guide for this dish, which I’d never heard of before Deb published it. It’s probably customizable, but the way she lays it out is hard to beat. It’d be overkill of a small project to make just one of these. I find it best to make a little kitchen mess in the serve of these the night before a picnic or a day at the pool. 

3. Cream cheese and jelly on white bread, Caton, New York, 1986?
I knowingly had exactly one of these, once. Maybe I had a few more a handful of other times around the same time, but this is the only one I remember and owing to the year, details are scarce. It was an outing with my nursery school classmates. There were horses, or ponies. I’d never been near ponies before. Somebody handed me a cream cheese & jelly sandwich. It sounded odd to me then. It hit the spot. I don’t make these now. Maybe I should?

2. Turkey on sandwich bread, Erwin, New York, 1993?
In the spring, maybe it was the summer, or maybe it was the fall, of approximately 1993, I put together a sandwich for myself at a funeral luncheon. This act was under a white tent on my childhood friend's parents’ large property, part farm part former B&B. His grandfather or maybe his grandmother had died. I feel bad that I can't remember, and I think it was his grandfather. The friend and I are no longer in touch. The sandwich, though. It was the first such combination of human death and everyday, otherwise, eating that I had encountered – deli trays and the like. I was a child and I have no idea how much he was grieving. I'm sure I didn't even know back then. The sandwich, beyond the funereal aspects, stands out for me as the first that I can distinctly recall assembling by myself. And in that way, it's memorable. But there really is something else about the connection between eating and how we gather to note a loss of a loved one. I can't say I've had more than a handful of funeral sandwiches over the years, but that mayonnaise on white bread, with some turkey and cheese, was a sign that I was growing up.

1. Fabulous Smokin’ Jay, Baltimore, Maryland, 2004
The Baltimore institution that was Eddie’s of Charles Village has since closed, but for decades they offered tremendous deli options. Their signature sandwich was the Fabulous Smokin’ Jay: smoked turkey on a roll with a thin slice of mozzarella, bacon, lettuce & tomato. I’d add mayo and mustard, because otherwise it lacked. In the summer of 2004, I was post-college but not yet doing anything else (that would be a few weeks later). My days consisted of Reno 911, Cops, light silliness, and making mix CDs. My friend Steve would come over on his lunch to the house I was subletting, sandwiches in tow, and we’d watch MacGyver reruns.

 

NB: All these were written before I enjoyed a hoagie omakase experience, which was life-changing in a different way. More on that next time.

Reading: I re-found my copy of My Berlin Kitchen. It had gotten tucked into a pool bag at the end of the summer. At the recommendation of Chrystina, I started You Turn, as I consider my own career trajectory. 

Eating: Thanks to a new blender in the house, I was on a smoothie kick. We kept up the rosemary cookies of November as a go-to for holiday parties. And I made a surprisingly decent strata, which my mom had sent me the recipe for. (The lone comment on the page makes me think that I made some modifications as I went along. I have no idea what these were. Sorry! Experiment!) One Christmas dinner was mostly cheese, while another was from Juana Tamale. New Year's Eve dinner was beignets and muffulettas and sazeracs. At some point, I had lunch with a friend at El Chingon; a TV crew was there and captured us on video eating gorgeous cemitas. I managed to goof on an order of sufganiyot, so one Chanukkah evening was with Frangelli's donuts and another was with Essen pastries. 

Beating: I found a great Derry Girls season 3 playlist that transported me to some very nineties memories. For reasons now forgotten, I listened to Carole King's Troubadour album. And because it's the end of the year, I was frothing over Phish New Year's Eve shows new and old. 

Deleting: We gave away various house items in white elephant gift packages. I had a stuffed animal ape that had been a well-intended gift to me when I was a kid. It was large, for one thing, and it just sat around my childhood bedroom. It made its way to us after Thanksgiving, and Kelsey had the idea to make it part of a whole white elephant combination gift: ape, loaf tin, my famous banana bread recipe, and the dry ingredients for same. It was a hit! We left that party with a Dunkin gift card and a Wawa gift card. 

Retreating: Christmas travel was Philly to Richmond to Philly to Corning to Reading to Philly, and so for New  Year's we opened Christmas presents with my brother and sister-in-law then watched Glass Onion. I have no record of any hikes or nature experiences or anything like that! I'm so sorry!!! I will make up for it soon, I think.

Meeting: I'm probably going to be in some live shows with The N Crowd in the coming weeks. Ask me for details!

Nobody's keeping track except me, but this was my longest newsletter yet just barely. 

Carry on,
Neil