Thursday 19 April 2007

Ode to the Sandwich

Earlier today, Graeme was bragging to me about a sandwich shop he'd found that apparently use fantastic breads and assemble lovely sandwiches. Now, a unique personality quirk of mine is that I am very suggestible when it comes to foods; it takes very little mention of a particular tasty morsel before I am obsessively craving it, and can think of nothing else.

So my afternoon was spent daydreaming about sandwiches. Which is not a bad thing--I think we can all appreciate how such a simple, yet versatile, food, adds to our lives. I am a big fan of foods that combine lots of foods I love together in one gorgeous concoction, and a good sandwich accomplishes that just right.

Sadly, I do not make sandwiches very often. I don't know why--they just don't come to mind. But this week I bought a gigantic load of gorgeous malted granary bread from the farmers' market and it was so big that I have been making a special effort to find things to do with it. Add today's conversation and an ungodly craving for raw spinach, and a sandwich was born.

The contents of this baby included (bottom-up):
  • The above-mentioned malted granary bread, toasted (I am not much of a toaster but the bread's getting a bit old and thus I was compelled);
  • Polish mustard, left to us by my former housemate Marie who has since relocated to Germany;
  • Quorn fake chicken slices;
  • Some sheep's milk Gouda that I purchased at Amsterdam's AMAZING Schipol airport a couple of weeks ago--never have I seen an airport so full of delicious cheese;
  • A few slices of red onion;
  • Some cherry tomatoes, sliced (obviously this is an unorthodox tomato to put in a sandwich, and not a very practical one, but I was all out of normal tomatoes and really wanted some in my sandwich);
  • A mountain of fresh spinach;
  • Alfalfa sprouts
  • A teeny bit more mustard, another slice of bread (duh).
It was delicious and filling and now I am craving another sandwich. If I make a second one, maybe I should include the avocado that I'd been planning to put in this one but forgot, because I am a flake? Maybe.

Anyway, I made this post primarily to appreciate simple foods that may not be rocket science, but that nevertheless make us happy during long and cranky Thursdays. I'd therefore like to open up this post to anyone who would like to share recent sandwich concoctions, the more creative the better. I want ideas! Perhaps interesting sandwiches can be a running thread on this blog.

4 comments:

robina said...

now the sea monster is craving a sandwich!

i love you guys!

xxr

Anna said...

I hear sandwiches are good for sea monsters. I read that in What to Expect When You're Expecting.

Haha I am so funny.

robina said...

i would give my right pinky toe to be in oxford eating a beautiful sandwich with you. when will you be on this continent?

over spring break i thought, "a year ago i was in bosnia with anna" and i got very mopey indeed.

xxr

robina said...

also, i read a foodblog called everybody loves sandwiches and i enjoy it very much, though it doesn't feature many sandwiches. still, your post made me think to pass it along.