Well, it's more like what WAS for dinner, given that dinner is long over and this is the first post for Friday... written late Thursday night.
Last week... on the occasion of completing our latest Adventure In Modern Dentistry... I wrote:
If this were a perfect world I'd have satisfied my sandwich lust by making a trip (or trips, plural) to the local delicatessen... the local Jewish delicatessen. There ain't no such animal in this part of the world and I doubt the locals would understand the concept of a delicatessen, let alone a bona-fide Jewish deli. That whole concept is kinda-sorta limited to the bi-coastal cultures and to the Midwest... Chicago and Dee-troit, in particular... but not so much in the southwest. Not at ALL, actually. I could go on for days about delis I've known and loved in the past but doin' that is like a lot o' other things: if you understand there's no sense in flogging a dead horse and if you don't there's just no explaining it. Shorter: you either get it or you don't.
What I had in mind looks something like this:
A big-ass roast beef sandwich, in other words, with all the trimmings. A corned beef sandwich, or a REAL Reuben, would come in a close second. We settled on roast beef because commercial corned beef just doesn't cut it... never has, never will.
So we picked up a good supply o' thinly-sliced roast beef at the commissary's deli counter, a big-ass package o' provolone, a loaf o' whole wheat bread (I wish I had access to a real bakery, while we're moaning) and those were the makings o' tonight's dinner. I already had a supply o' Claussen pickles and a bag o' potato chips laid in, so we were set. Cutting to the chase... we made ourself two humongous, cholesterol-laden, big-ass sandwiches that would give Shelly Obama or any other "healthy eating" scold a case o' the vapors. And we enjoyed every single bite... both the physical act o' biting into the sammidges (glorious!) and the gustatory goodness of roast beef, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, and horseradish... all of which combined to produce something on the order of an orgasmic sensation.
I prolly should have taken pictures of this modest feast but frankly the thought didn't occur to me that dinner was blog-fodder until well after we were done eating and clean-up complete. So... look at the image on the right and use yer imagination; it's a close approximation of what we had for dinner this evening. Yup, our sammidges... with layer upon layer upon layer of beef, cheese, and the other ingredients... were Dagwoodian in proportion. Is there any other way?
Last week... on the occasion of completing our latest Adventure In Modern Dentistry... I wrote:
And now we can eat sammidges, and tacos, and pizza, and apples, and... well, you get my drift, I'm sure.We've done all of the above except for a sandwich or two and we rectified that situation this past evening. I had a number of things to do on this our first full day back at the ranch... stuff like replenish the beer and whiskey supply, pick up meds at the Cannon Airplane Patch pharmacy, and last but not least, restock the larder by visiting the Cannon commissary. We were on a mission while in the commissary, which was to pick up the ingredients required to make a world-class sandwich or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
If this were a perfect world I'd have satisfied my sandwich lust by making a trip (or trips, plural) to the local delicatessen... the local Jewish delicatessen. There ain't no such animal in this part of the world and I doubt the locals would understand the concept of a delicatessen, let alone a bona-fide Jewish deli. That whole concept is kinda-sorta limited to the bi-coastal cultures and to the Midwest... Chicago and Dee-troit, in particular... but not so much in the southwest. Not at ALL, actually. I could go on for days about delis I've known and loved in the past but doin' that is like a lot o' other things: if you understand there's no sense in flogging a dead horse and if you don't there's just no explaining it. Shorter: you either get it or you don't.
What I had in mind looks something like this:
A big-ass roast beef sandwich, in other words, with all the trimmings. A corned beef sandwich, or a REAL Reuben, would come in a close second. We settled on roast beef because commercial corned beef just doesn't cut it... never has, never will.
I prolly should have taken pictures of this modest feast but frankly the thought didn't occur to me that dinner was blog-fodder until well after we were done eating and clean-up complete. So... look at the image on the right and use yer imagination; it's a close approximation of what we had for dinner this evening. Yup, our sammidges... with layer upon layer upon layer of beef, cheese, and the other ingredients... were Dagwoodian in proportion. Is there any other way?
I'm not one bit hungry... and I'm drooling.
ReplyDeleteI really do miss the real delis where meat is sliced to order and other stuff is packed for you out of the deli case as you order it.
OTOH - I don't think I ever want to live in a city or the burbs again.
What a conundrum.
What a conundrum.
DeleteLike my Nipponese friends say: "SO, desuka?" I'm pretty sure good delis are a city phenomenon.
Being a Southwest girl, I have yet to meet such a deli, but I'm game. I love me a sandwich of any sort. I'm really ready for garden weather and vine ripe tomatoes on a sandwich.
ReplyDeleteWell... check out the web the next time you go to the Big City. OKC may even have a good deli, but I don't remember ever goin' to one.
DeleteBuck, in Louisville there is a short-order eat-in-take-out restaurant called "Another Place" (two locations, one on Bardstown Rd and another downtown in the CBD) that features a sammich called the "Piled High" which consists of grilled pastrami AND corned beef AND two strips of bacon AND Swiss Cheese AND Red Onion AND lettuce & Tomato (iirc) on toasted--on the grill--Rye bread with a big ass pickle on the side. HEAVEN!!! (maybe they didn't have the lettuce & Tomato, memory fades)
ReplyDeleteFWIW My fave home-made deli meal that I treat myself to when I'm batching it is: grilled brats, lots of Clausens sauerkraut, dark pumpernickle bread , some slices of sharp chedder, plenty of plain yellow mustard (for both brats & cheese--although either spicy brown of New Orleans style is fine also) and German red potato-salad., all washed down with a good dark German Beer. MAN 'O MAN!
Also fwiw I consider the best condiments to put on a strictly corn-beef sammich (po-boy/sub or whatever is NOTHING but worstershire sauce! YUM!
Your favorite home-made deli meal sounds like a winner, Virgil. As for condiments on corned beef... I like brown mustard on mine.
DeleteThere was a guy, Nate Epstein, in San Bruno (CA) years ago who cured the best pastrami
ReplyDeleteThat's all he did
That was the best stuff because he was particular about the briskets he used, among other things
I wonder who has his recipe now?
I googled my favorite deli in Dee-troit last night, only to find it doesn't exist any longer, the owner had sold out and went into the deli meat bid'niz, where he's very successful... shipping all over the country. Here's what I found:
DeleteHow good is Sy Ginsberg Corned Beef?
It's so good, it's the only one sold at celebrated Zingerman's Delicatessen in Ann Arbor. And thanks in part to Zingerman's ringing endorsements, Ginsberg's company has corned beef customers from Seattle to Miami and California to New York.
Ginsberg, 64, of Novi more or less backed into the business. He owned a deli, the Pickle Barrel in Southfield, until 1980 but sold it to start a food distribution company. One day it occurred to him he could probably make his own corned beef rather than distributing someone else's, and the rest is history on rye bread.
His company, United Meat & Deli, is both a deli supplier and meat processor, making kosher-style corned beef, pastrami, roast beef and roast turkey. But only one product bears his name: Sy Ginsberg Corned Beef.
It's Jewish style, of course, with "a sweet, garlicky flavor" rather than what he calls "the Irish flavor" with bay, clove and other spices.
Almost all of his corned beef is sold to delis; in an average week, he ships about 125,000 pounds. But for a few weeks before St. Patrick's Day, sales triple as retail customers buy it in metro Detroit's top markets to cook at home. He even adds a spice packet for those who want to go Irish.
Maybe Sy has Nate's recipe?
Re: Jewish Delis in the SW: Although modern air transport, immigration of people from exotic climes and the spread of international eats & good Chefs make my rule less firm than 30-40 yrs ago, however my rule-of-thumb is NEVER to eat food not native to the region, i.e., steaks, not seafood in KC & the Mid-West, the reverse on the coasts, etc. Stick with Tex-Mex in the SW and under NO CIRCUMSTANCES eat ANY Chinese food in Seymour, Ind., lol!
ReplyDeleteI pretty much agree with ya, except for the Chinese food thing. TSMP and I found that we could nearly ALWAYS get a good meal while traveling if we went to a Chinese restaurant. That was true in Europe and North America... and, strangely enough, in China! :-)
DeleteBuck, "nearly always" doesn't cut it. I swear by Odin that, although the employees were all Chinese--native Chinese, even at that--they had "blanded out" the taste for mid-west taste-buds until the food was VIRTUALLY TASTELESS-practically INEDIBLE. w. ZERO TASTE of ANYTHING recognizable as "food." If it had been an all-white "murrican" mid-west cast I could have perhaps understood, but, but, but...I guess you have to understand the culinary tastes of small-town white Protestant mid-west, e.g., the only "Chinee" "restaurant"/take-out place in my small hometown (and it's a COLLEGE town, no less!) in East-Central Illinois is, quite frankly, not much better. BLAND, BLAND, BLAND and more TOTALLY
DeleteTASTELESS bland..
Umm, well... how do ya REALLY feel, Virg?
DeleteAnd speaking of 1950s small farm-town mid-west provincial, I rember circa 1952 watching the Jackie Gleason show where he and Ed Norton were always ordering out for Pizzas. I asked my Dad: "What's a Pizza Pie?" He answered: "Oh, it's just something Italians in NYC eat." LOL! By the time I was in HS we had two pizzerias and pizza was well on the way to becoming a national food. And Chinese food? Buck, being my age you MUST remember that canned "Chung-King Chow-Mein" that was sold at the grocery-store's. You know, the double-can stack with the small can underneath that contained those hard, crispy noodles? (I think it's still sold today) And you dumped Soy-Sauce over everything to make it half-way tasty? That was the ONLY "Chinese" "food" I ever ate growing up until I got to college, lol! I thought at the time: "If this is Chinese food I'm NOT impressed," LOL!! So much for small-town 50s midwestern "sophistication." LOL
ReplyDeleteI DO remember that Chung-King glop. My Mom used to fix that stuff and call it Chinese... my reactions were the same as yours: "If this is Chinese food then I want NO part of it!" Further... when I first moved to Dee-troit in 1985 I noticed there were a lot o' "Chop Suey" restaurants; I kid thee not. I NEVER, EVER set foot in one of those joints.
DeleteMore about 50s "eating." : The ONLY time we ate at a table was Sundays when we ate at the breakfast table or Thanksgiving/Christmas when we ate at the formal dining-room table. Otherwise we ALWAYS ate off "TV Trays" as we watched the evening shows around 7 -8 o' clock as that was the approx time Dad would get home from BB practice in the winter and tennis practice in the summer..
ReplyDeleteOur families were much different in that regard, Virgil. My parents ALWAYS insisted on a sit-down dinner and it was always taken in the dining room, with a table cloth and formal (if I can use that word) place settings. One of my earliest chores as a child was setting the table for dinner. I don't think we even owned any teevee trays.
DeleteBut my grandmother did... and she always took her meals in front of the teevee, and that's why I loved spending summers at her house.