Everyone’s got a list of favorite sandwiches. These five moments, between two slices, are mine.
(1) BLT
My dad makes ours with burnt-to-a-crisp bacon, crunchy iceberg lettuce, heaving slices of beef tomatoes, hunks of Wisconsin Cheddar and a fat dollop of Ranch dressing, between two toasted slices of whatever bread is in the fridge. Claussen pickle to serve.
Over the years, my dad has totally slacked off on cooking. This is something many of my friends have experienced with their own fathers. What we’ve gathered is that our dads are, in fact, pretty decent chefs. But for some reason, they rely on meals made by others, and when faced with the absence of another party’s food-fixing skills, our dads have honed their snack-making abilities to near professional standards. My dad can smoke a mean Thanksgiving turkey, and he runs the BBQ like a Weber King, but Mike seriously excels at making snacks: Eggs with random leftovers and plenty of butter in a pan are fried into a dish that is both terrifying-looking and tastes terrifyingly delicious. When my brother and I were younger, our mom would go on a rare but deserved vacation to California to visit her sister. We knew that for a week, our homemade cuisine would consist of cold cereal, Bagel Bites and professional-grade, homemade snacks. Mostly, though, we looked forward to our one special dinner venture to the combination Kentucky Fried Chicken-Taco Bell-Pizza Hut. KenTacoHut, as we lovingly called the fastfood trifecta, was a haven of choice. And since Mom only went out of town once every 200 years, our dad figured it’d take more than a singular visit to KTH for childhood obesity to settle in. We ate fried chicken, on cheese pizzas, complete with intermittent bites of nachos. We slid through what seemed like miles of germy, colorful plastic kid-tunnels and ball pits until we thought our stomachs would explode. So you can probably guess my disappointment when, after experiencing the rare but unforgettable food of KenTacoHut, my dad resolved to use the week my mom went on vacation to make legitimate dinners. We complained until he blew our fastfood kid minds with a BLT: Lettuce that was both water-logged and crisp. Smoky bacon. Hefty slices of cheddar that became part of the bread, which was toasted to golden perfection and buttered on the underside. We even ate our tomatoes. In no time at all, Mike Handelman made his kids more adventurous eaters by taking them out of the combinatorial fastfood ballpit. I’m eternally grateful.
(2) The Club
Ingredients: Start with two slices of buttered and mustard-ed toast, with Swiss and Applewood cheese, one seriously thick stack of turkey and tissue-thin prosciutto, as many tomatoes as you like, enough lettuce to yield loud crunches, thin strips of roasted red peppers, red onions, pickles, avocado. Top off with a toothpick and a pimento-stuffed olive.
Optional ingredients: One rasher of smoked bacon and an extra slice of bread
Those closest to me know that everything I eat makes me hurt. Partaking in the consumption of a deliciously handcrafted sandwich is not always a pleasure. Many times the glutinous bread, cheese and condiments keep me from enjoying a legitimately wonderful handheld meal. Sandwiches are a part of our lives — they’re easy to make, portable and fulfill one of life’s small commuter pleasures: You can eat them while driving. Despite a passion for the PB&J (unfortunately, stomach issues forced me into quitting PB&Js cold-turkey), my own appreciation for thoughtful sandwich-making and eating came late in life. Yes, sandwiches can be quick hunger fixes, but I believe that with enough foresight and creativity, a sandwich can yield a dinner as complex and rewarding as multiple courses. The Club is my attempt to push my own sandwich-eating and appreciating boundaries. It has never been a sandwich I’ve particularly craved or ordered in restaurants. But in the past few months, I’ve realized that my Club was inspired by the need to create a venue where all of my dream ingredients could conspire. It’s a sandwich that requires a certain level of strategic planning, but nothing life-altering. Two slices of bread — one wheat, one rye — are toasted while I cut tomatoes, tear lettuce, slice onions and prepare a variety of smoked Applewood and Swiss cheeses. The deli turkey shreds away from itself in satisfying hunks. And the prosciutto — a muscle-y rainbow of pinks — tears like perforated paper along its fat, white streaks. Every ingredient is out on the counter. Juices splatter and smear across my once-clean chopping board. The pale meat of an avocado easily spreads along the base of the sandwich. The garlicky pickles are never sliced thin enough, and the olive oily, roasted red pepper is like greasy gold. I layer slowly, never worrying about the final height of the sandwich, but always carefully keeping it together. Each ingredient is a favorite acquired throughout my life as an eater. Now though, I’ve curated every slice, chunk and scrap to make something more. It’s a strange thing to put into words, but I’m tremendously proud of my Club. It’s a sandwich I don’t mind using half a paper towel roll to clean up off my face, while chowing down in front of and with those I love. The Club is the sum of its parts.
(3) Grilled Cheese
Ingredients: A couple slices of cheap wheat bread, liquid butter, one slice of American Cheese and wax paper for wrapping.
It’s a sandwich near and dear — a staple to which I’ve devoted many musing hours. While jam-topped grilled cheeses really are the bees knees, nothing compares to the Winstead’s grilled cheese on wheat. A Kansas City fixture, Winstead’s prides itself on grilling the thinnest, most perfect steakburgers. Throughout decades of business, the restaurant has maintained a timelessly dated palette of salmon and seafoam green vinyl booth cushions and carpets. No kid can resist popping a coin in the jukebox and ordering the two-foot tall skyscraper milkshake (any flavor you like) to split among the carpool group. But I don’t like carrying change (weighs too much), nor do I enjoy suffering through ice cream-induced stomachaches. For me, Winstead’s will forever be about the fabulously greasy grilled cheese sandwich wrapped in wax paper so well-oiled it’s like looking at your food through a handheld window. Dipped in Heinz 57 Ketchup and punctuated by the occasional bite of a thick, fried onion ring, this sandwich nourishes like no other kind of fastfood. Despite being slightly undersized and severely spatula-flattened, the grilled cheese sates. Every shiny fingertip gets licked. And I unashamedly bask in the smell — bread and cheese, together, in a well buttered griddle — that taints my hair and senses till the day’s end.
(4) Peanut Butter and Jelly
Ingredients: Two slices of doughy, sliced, wheatberry bread, lots of Peter Pan Honey Roasted Crunchy Peanut Butter, gobs of Polaner All Fruit Black Cherry Jelly and a handful of Fritos.
The problem was I wanted to go to the sophomore Homecoming dance with Brad, not Ben. And there was another problem: Caleb had told Ben that making this sandwich was the way to win my heart — or at least a prom date. This sandwich — gooey with tart cherry jelly and roof-of-mouth-sticky peanut butter —was the perfect sandwich, and not because of the classic ingredients, which over the years I had customized to palatable perfection. No, this sandwich, constructed between two layers of the meltingest, doughiest, seediest bread, was a total gamewinner because of the Fritos. Canonically, the corn chip is, hands-down, a proven crispy champ at dip-scooping, but Fritos are at their best after being smooshed, in the early morning, between jelly, peanut butter and two slices of bread and ziplocked up, only to be reawakened — at least five hours later — by the lunchtime bell. Ben thought he had me figured out, but he totally didn’t because through a very complex grapevine, I knew he was going to ask me to Homecoming, and I also knew how he was going to do it. Ben, though, was unaware that I wanted to go with Brad. As luck would have it, Brad did indeed ask. I accepted, and unfortunately, Ben didn’t learn the news until that day at lunchtime, when he stood in front of me, brown paper bag in hand, and asked if I’d be his date. Girls love getting what they want, but we also don’t like breaking hearts, so I gently turned Ben down. I wasn’t, however, prepared for his odd but endearing chivalry: “I made you this,” he said, holding out the paper bag. “I’d love to at least have lunch with you and hear what you think of the sandwich.” Sure! I said. Of course! (He wanted to watch me eat this sandwich?) I couldn’t pretend — the sandwich was perfect. And despite the recent rejection, I wanted to enjoy the PB&J. Because that’s what you do when someone who cares about you makes you something. And because homemade (even brown-bagged) pressies are fun (and breaking hearts isn’t), I promised Ben a dance or three at Homecoming.
(5) The Salami Sandwich
Ingredients: Two or three circles of salami, Mature English Cheddar, a few slices of red onion, tomato, Gem Lettuce leaves, wholegrain mustard, butter, and gherkin to serve.
My stomach was going to implode. Evening had long settled into night, and another two hours would pass before I’d climb the five floors up to my crummy, but glamorously located, Kensington flat. We had worked late. And now we were both hungry. Pushed by January’s fierce, biting chomp, we walked, half-frozen, from the office to the supermarket. Inside the Waitrose glow, he grabbed a basket and cavalierly picked his ingredients: tossing around a red onion, testing a tomato’s faint bruise, choosing a type of mature white cheddar without looking, ordering eight wafer-thin slices of salami at the deli counter, paying, and finally swinging his bag of Vogel’s Soya and Linseed bread (a splurge) all the way to his top-floor flat on Colebrooke Road. Inside and warmed by the generous glow of the space heater, I watched intently as he wiped thick spreads of salty Lurpack butter along the insides of each piece of bread. Torn by the teeth of his serrated knife, the juicy tomato surrendered into hairline slices with seeds intact. Bits of red onion (I can still taste them) fell into hollow, purple O’s. Salami, cheddar (and all the rest) were contained by the bread whose insides boasted large dollops of spicy, wholegrain mustard. After we’ve eaten some dinner, I’ll walk you to your train, he said. I washed my bites of buttery cheese, lettuce and crushed tomatoes down with steady sips of water. Before that delicious sandwich had made its way to my stomach, I felt full. Happy. I resolved to take my time. I resolved to chew slowly. I’d fallen in love.
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Sarah Handelman is author of the awesome blog Not French Cooking, which is also a zine. She is officially 900% cooler than I am.
Illustrations by Tom Loughlin.
