sandwich artist
handheld foods and the importance of pickles
Helping someone move is one of the purest forms of love, because moving is, no matter how well it goes, one of the most soul-destroying tasks imaginable. But Jeff’s sister Natalie helped us with our absolutely horrific move five years ago, so we accepted that we owed her one (or two). She luckily had had all week to pack boxes and move them over to her new apartment, so mostly she just needed help moving furniture from her old place and emptying the storage unit, putting beds together, and sorting items into the storage locker in her new place’s parking garage.
Spatial relations is where I shine, so I was glad to volunteer to fit shelves and Christmas decorations and outdoor gear into the 2’x4’x8’ locker like a puzzle. I also got to make Natalie’s day: I looked at a desk she thought she’d have to get rid of for being too big for its intended recessed nook and said, “it’ll fit,” and it did. Once the moving van was unloaded, we sat on camp chairs on the balcony eating overly cheesy Panago pizza and drinking ice-cold cans of pale ale, the traditional moving day reward.
The next day, a surprisingly warm and sunny Sunday, Jeff and I went over to Beere to relax with a patio beverage, and on the way, spotted an open garage door with a few people sitting at barrels with flights and dishes of peanuts— a new brewery? We stopped in on the way back, and discovered that they are called Braggot Brewing and, incidentally, make a type of brew known as braggot: a meeting point between beer and mead. I’d never heard of this before and I’ll admit my hopes weren’t high (sorry to say I am a mead hater), but we were interested enough to give it a shot. They currently have three styles you can try (golden, amber, and dark) and I was pleasantly surprised to find they tasted less like a cloying mead and more like a barrel-aged beer. Maybe it was the warm weather, but I liked the golden style best.
While we were there, someone I hadn’t seen in years walked by with her partner, and the two of them joined us to catch up and share some honey roasted peanuts. When our glasses were emptied I invited them and their dog back to our yard to try some of Jeff’s home brew and have a snack of some crackers, gruyère, pickles, and dried fruit. These sorts of impromptu get-togethers are why it’s a good idea to always have multiple types of pickles in your fridge.
I ended up making another snack plate for a friend visiting from Montreal (our first time meeting, but we’ve known each other on the internet since our tumblr days in the late ‘00s) this week. She came to the North Shore only for us to discover that the cidery she’d wanted to try is closed on Tuesdays. She’s not a beer fan and as a British ex-pat, a good dry cider is highly valued, so I’d hoped to impress her with something local. I invited her to our backyard instead, went to the liquor store to pick up some of the ciders, and put out some green salad in mustard vinaigrette, cheese, pickled rhubarb, and butter to eat with slices of whole wheat sourdough.
In Six Seasons, the author recommends using any combination of spring herbs, edible flowers, microgreens, and so on to flavour and beautify a smear of butter dusted with plenty of salt flakes and pepper. I grabbed what I could from the garden: lemon thyme, chives and their blossoms, rosemary flowers, marjoram. It looked gorgeous and tasted great, and it’s nice to have low-effort food to serve so you can spend more time with your guests and less time in front of the stove. This would also be a nice one if you need to keep people occupied and out of the kitchen when you are making a more involved dinner, because fresh bread and good butter is a perfect food that most of us can’t get enough of. Oh, and if you too are a dry cider lover, give Windfall Cider a try.
I needed to use up some paneer before it turned into a dried-out husk, and I felt like trying something other than saag paneer or matar paneer, my usual defaults for this cheese. I found this chole recipe that sounded a bit like a korma, made with cashew cream and milk and lots of spices. It was easy to make and really flavourful, but I’m not sure the paneer necessarily added anything; I think it would have been equally good, if not better, with just chickpeas. But it accomplished what I’d set out to do, and for that I am grateful.
To use the rest of the chickpeas we cooked for the curry, I made a tuna-style salad for sandwiches. I’d tried the recipe in Isa Does It a few years ago but found it a bit coleslaw-like; I wanted something creamier and more like a deli-style tuna sandwich. With this one I made it more standard: mashing the chickpeas so that almost no whole ones were left and then adding vegan mayo, finely chopped celery and shallot, dulse flakes for a hint of the sea, and chopped pickle with a little dash of the brine. I found it a lot more satisfying to eat with this texture. Sometimes I feel like an oddity because I actually enjoy eating leftovers for lunch, but when there aren’t any, nothing hits like a good sandwich with a side of chips.
While digging through the pantry for a can of tomatoes, I discovered we still had a can of young jackfruit, so I made it into a taco filling using jalapeño, mushrooms, smoked paprika, and barbecue sauce. I’d made this pulled pork-style filling for sandwiches and tacos before, and the main thing to remember to get a good texture is to really let it cook down to soften. I cook it for 20-30 minutes, mashing it occasionally with a potato masher to get more shredded-like pieces, and adding broth if it starts to dry out. I made a red cabbage slaw to go on top, and pickled onions for garnish. There was only about one taco’s worth of filling left after dinner, so for lunch the next day I made it into a huge, perfect quesadilla and ate it with the slaw on the side.
Also this week I felt like having a BLT, and we had One Arrow bacon in the freezer (I bought a bunch because I heard they were closing but can’t seem to find any info on it, so let me know if you know for sure). We roasted some potato wedges to go with it for a classic diner meal. With the rest of the bacon, I made bucatini all’amatriciana— a lovely simple tomato-based pasta sauce with a rich flavour from the bacon fat (or guanciale, if you’re keeping more traditional). As a bonus this used up the remainder of the tomato purée from the curry, as well as the pecorino breadcrumbs from last week (I told you they come in handy).
Media:
This was an interesting piece by Mikala Jamison, about the need for nuanced understanding of what we eat and why. At one end of the spectrum is the “wellness” movement, much of which is just repackaged diet culture, fatphobia, or orthorexia. And at the other end we have the “eat what you want” mindset which is largely positive, but its apex seems to be “judging what you eat is bad and therefore junk food companies deserve to be celebrated”. The author stresses that what you eat is neither “good” nor “bad”, but that approaching ways of eating that actually feel good in your body is a skill many of us had to learn (or are still in the process of learning) due to junk food’s hyperpalatability and constant exposure to body shame and diet culture.
More lightly, I read this short piece describing Italy’s disco-era answer to the intensity of a Long Island Iced Tea: the Quattro Bianchi, or Invisibile. With a lethal-sounding combo of white rum, gin, vodka, and triple sec, I don’t know that I could enjoy this the way I do a Negroni (an admittedly fairly strong drink), but I can appreciate bartenders wanting to honour its terrifying legacy with their own modern takes.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please smash that like button below, or share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. Lastly, is it wrong that this would make me more likely to visit The Cheesecake Factory?