Lunch

Egg and onion sandwich with homemade "crock" pickle.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Shopping: none

My wife declares this "the best" egg sandwich ever. It's made with a fresh pastured egg from Creekside Farm & Orchard in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Daughter and I walked to the Dupont Circle farmers market on Sunday and picked up a couple of dozen. (We used to get our eggs from farmer friend Brett's weekly winter CSA box. But we were unable to find a partner to share the CSA subscription this year. I feel terribly disloyal, but we must have our pastured eggs.)

The egg and its rich orange yolk were mixed with a bit of salt and pepper and quick-fried. We toasted slices of the multi-grain bread that we get delivered from our dairy, South Mountain Creamery. (It's a deliciously chewy bread that makes quite a trip, first baked in Ellicott City, Maryland, then trucked across the state to the dairy almost in West Virginia, then back to us in the District of Columbia. It arrives frozen but you'd never know once it is thawed.)

A little mayonnaise on the bread, some thinly sliced onion on the egg. The pickle is a sweet and sour variety that we put up last summer, just the thing to spice up this simple lunch.

Lunch

All this talk about pickles and rye bread made me hungry for a corned beef sandwich.

Unfortunately, the District of Columbia is not exactly known for its Jewish delicatessens. So this menu required a trip to the Parkway Deli, almost in Silver Spring, Maryland.

It was a pleasure to stand in front of the display case and ogle the chopped chicken liver, the white fish salad, the brined herring. I also found a bag of Utz potato chips cooked in lard, which would be our new preference over cooking oils such as processed sunflower or cottonseed. I grabbed some of the herring, along with the corned beef and a pint of cole slaw.

To construct the sandwich, I spread Dijon mustard on two slices of fresh rye bread. A goodly amount of corned beef was piled on one slice, then drizzled with a homemade Thousand Island dressing (mayo, ketchup, pickle relish, rice wine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce), followed by a slice of Swiss cheese and a layer of cole slaw. It's too hot to light the over, so I placed the sandwich in an iron skillet over low heat and covered it to melt the cheese. After turning the sandwich once, it was beautifully toasted on each side, the cheese running.

Serve with the chips and one of our own deli-style pickles. Close your eyes and you are transported to the Carnegie Deli. The only thing missing: a cream soda.

Viva el Cubano!

They say you can't get an authentic Cubano sandwich outside Miami and I tend to believe it. Ingredients can be extremely local. I can't image a true lobster roll, for instance, without a top-cut bun, and top-cut buns aren't available outside certain areas of New England.

Still, we continuously try to duplicate the flavors, the smells, the textures we love--or at least imagine we are doing so. I say, if you love a good Cubano sandwich and the only thing standing in your way is an authentic Cuban roll, close your eyes and wrap your gums around the best roll you can find.

A Cubano is an odd combination. You would never think of a Cuban slapping together a soft roll, yellow mustard, roast pork, dill pickles, ham and Swiss cheese and calling it a taste of the home country. The truth is, the Cubano is 100 percent American, a product of South Florida. What makes it really local is the Cuban bread it is made on, which traditionally contains lard (so they say). After that, what separates the Cubano from the ordinary submarine sandwich is the fact that is pressed--hard and long--in a plancha, or sandwich press, that melts the cheese with the meat and pickles.

If you don't have any Cuban bread on hand, find yourself a soft submarine-type roll. Cut the roll in half lengthwise. Smear one of the inside halves with mustard (yellow or Dijon) and cover the other half with slices of Swiss cheese. Over the mustard lay slices of a full-flavored, deli-style ham, such as Black Forest ham. Over the cheese lay a mound of pulled pork, or slices of roast pork. (We used slices of loin I had spit roasted with some hickory chips last Thursday--the flavor was intense).

Fold the sandwich together. Butter the outside of the roll. Press it hard and for a good long while in your sandwich press until the roll is lightly browned and the cheese is oozing.

What's that? You say you don't have a sandwich press? Well, maybe you do and you just don't know it. Place a large, heavy skillet over moderately low heat. When it comes up to temperature, lay your sandwiches in there. Now take a second, smaller heavy skillet. Lay it on top of the sandwiches and fill it up with canned goods, as many as you can fit. Press down on the sandwiches and let them cook. That is your sandwich press.

Listen for cheese sizzling in the skillet. That is your cue to remove the flattened sandwiches, slice them in two and serve with some tangy cole slaw and a cold beer.

It will make you want to shout, Viva el Cubano!

Bottom photo--pickles on the side--by daughter

Lunch = Leftovers

Turkey breast in whole-wheat pita pocket, sage-infused mayo, cranberry relish, arugula from the CSA box.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Shopping: none

Building a Cocktail Buffet

When we put on a cocktail buffet, we go into production mode.


One of our go-to hors d'oeuvres is grilled shrimp. We use tail-on shrimp and apply a light drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, then a spice rub adjusted to the menu theme. Most of our rubs include a few basic spices--coarse salt, garlic salt, onion powder, brown sugar and usually chili powder. For a Southwestern theme, we would add cumin. Cinnamon and coriander would give the rub a North African tilt. For an Asian flavor, we use ginger and powdered lemon grass.

Line shrimp on a sheet pan, apply olive oil and dust with spice rub. Flip the shrimp and repeat the process.

For a small group, we would favor really large shrimp and place them on skewers so they don't curl. Otherwise, for larger groups, we lay the shrimp directly on the grill over very hot coals. Flip the shrimp once and look for some nice charring here and there. They only take a few short minutes to cook through. Remove them to a sheet pan to cool.


We served these Asian-style shrimp with a mayo dip seasoned with wasabi.


Miniature crab cakes also make an excellent hors d'oeuvres. We favor large pieces of crab meat in our crab cakes, not the kind where everything seems to have been run through a food processor to resemble cat food. The cakes are bound together with just a bit of egg, mayonnaise and bread crumbs.


If you have a crab cake recipe you like, all you have to do is reduce the size of the cakes from what you are used to. My wife likes a small mechanical scoop. It looks just like a miniature ice cream scoop. In fact, these scoops come in many different sizes.



Mix your usual ingredients in a bowl, then heat about 1/2-inch cooking oil at the bottom of a heavy skillet. Use both hands and the scoop to form the crab cake mix into small rounds. Place these in the hot oil with plenty of room around each, then flatten with a narrow off-set spatula. When the cakes have browned on one side, turn to the other side. The oil should be just hot enough to cook the crab cakes all the way through without burning. You will see the oil bubbling around each crab cake.




Remove the cakes to a baking sheet lined with paper towels. We served them with a Chesapeake-style tartar sauce, just a dollop on each crab cake.


We made two kinds of miniature sandwiches for the buffet using sweet potato biscuits. The sweet potatoes are first roasted in the oven, cooled, then incorporated into a traditional biscuit batter. My wife uses a small cookie cutter to form the biscuits. After they've baked and cooled, it's quite easy to open them into two halves and lay them out on the kitchen counter for assembly.




There were two different sandwiches on the menu: roasted turkey with a sage-infused mayonaise and cranberry sauce and a glazed ham with our own green tomato-apple chutney and maple mustard.



Once the biscuit pieces are lined up, we use a small spatula to spread the condiments, then lay down pieces of turkey or ham cut to size. Once the sandwiches are finally assembled, they can easily be stored in the refrigerator until you are ready to display them. They can even be made a day ahead. Just bring them up to room temperature before the guests arrive.


A suggestion for display: Try stacking the mini-sandwiches on decorative plates placed on a three-tier stand. This brings some drama and verticality to the buffet.

Besides being loaded with holiday flavors, the sandwiches--small and tidy as they are--also have a kind of tongue-in-cheek appeal. They make you want to giggle out loud.

Fried Green Tomato BLT

Readers have probably detected that the best cooking in these quarters comes not from The Slow Cook but from his trusty sidekick.

So it is with this ingenious twist on the classic BLT sandwich, substituting fried green tomatoes. My wife drew her inspiration from a similar item on the menu at one of our neighborhood restaurants here in the District of Columbia, the St.-Ex.

My wife is a passionate baker but also has the magic touch when it comes to frying. Her crab cakes, described here recently, fit the very definition of sublime. She takes her time, is very methodical and has a steady hand around the fry pan, precisely what is required to achieve those golden crusts and done-to-a-turn insides.

These particular green tomatoes came from our garden where we have two heirloom varieties growing: Brandywine and Cherokee purple. They fried up big and meaty, no falling apart or leaking. Check your nearest farmers market if you don't have tomato plants of your own. Or maybe you have a generous neighbor.

Last year we planted our tomatoes late and had a bumper crop of greens when the first frosts hit. We turned most of them into green tomato pickles. But more about those anon.

For specific instructions on frying green tomatoes, my wife turned to the 'net. She rejected a recipe that called for soaking the green tomato slices first in a bowl of ice water for 30 minutes (I can only imagine that was to keep the tomatoes from overcooking while they were in the fry pan.) Then she landed on these instructions courtesy of Southern Living magazine.


Cut fairly thick slices of tomato, dredge them in flour, then in an egg wash mixed with buttermilk, then in a mix of flour, cornmeal and seasonings. Fry until golden in 1/2-inch of canola oil in a heavy iron skillet. Set the fried tomatoes on a wire rack to cool.


For the sandwich, we used slices from a rustic loaf we'd previously purchased at Whole Foods. Smear one slice with mayo and then lay on a couple of pieces of cooked bacon and some basil leaves. On the other slice, my wife spread some chili mayo that she'd made using a chili mixture we received over the winter in our subscription box from farmer friend Brett Grohsgal (Brett makes a number of different preserves and condiments for his CSA). Then she added the fried tomatoes and pressed the two halves together.


Originally my wife made these tomatoes for a cocktail buffet she was catering with my sister. These were the leftovers. They made a damn good lunch reheated.

Italians

A day on the water with a bag of Italians represents something of a culmination of our week here in South Freeport, Maine. Italians are to this part of the country what steak subs are to Philadelphia. We get ours from a local deli called Pat's, this particular version being a soft hot dog roll (known hereabouts as a "top-cut bun") sliced open and loaded with cold cuts, provolone cheese, thin strips of green bell pepper and sliced tomato.

Thus loaded, the Italian becomes a kind of open-faced sandwich. Tradition holds that before eating it you drizzle the filling with extra-virgin olive oil, which these days is provided in little foil packets (as opposed to the small plastic containers that sometimes opened and spilled inside the bag as you were transporting them home, a potential disaster and a story for another time...)

The point of sailing with Italians isn't so much the sandwiches, of course, as the journey. Italians immediately conjure up summer days from the past spent lolling around Casco Bay, landing on one of the small islands, finding a place to picnic--the sea breezes heeling the boat and stirring conversation, feet in the water and looking for purchase in the stones, scouting locations for the luncheon feast, climbing rocks, spreading napkins, oiling the Italians, guzzling beers.

So it was on this particular trip as we marched to the marina with our lBean bags loaded with sweaters and sunblock and potato chips, the several coolers prepared by Peter and jammed with sodas and water bottles and Becks and Pabst Blue Ribbon (the latter would be Peter's current favorite brew, Carling's not being available in Florida, where he now resides).

Originally we had planned to lunch on an island called Goslings, but Peter, who was ferrying the teenaged girls and the young girls in the Boston Whaler, reported over the radio that Goslings was too crowded (even on a Thursday afternoon) so we headed for the next closest island, Little Whaleboat.

The beach was perfectly deserted as we approached in the dinghy. The teenaged girls were already stripped down to their swimsuits with the younger girls scampered off to climb rocks and collect clam shells. We located a shelf of rocks with a good view and sufficient surface to spread out our victuals and there we settled in to devour our Italians.

It was a perfect place to create new memories over sandwiches, only the occasional squawking of the seagulls to break the silence, sailboats gliding past in the distance, Shannon and John discussing the small rock ledge out in the water they had encountered last week with the sailboat. "It isn't on the chart," Shannon repeated a number of times, as if to assure himself that he hadn't hit the thing on purpose.

Down on the beach, the teenaged girls were wading in the water. Finally, Isabella plunged in and swam slowly out into the small cove, bobbing up and down using her breast stroke. We watched, savoring our Italians, munching on Cape Cod potato chips and drinking our beers.

On the return leg, the breeze kicked up and now we were taking it off the starboard bow, rather than from behind, so it was more of an interesting sail, not the leisurely event when we'd had a light wind behind us. Shelly took the opportunity to read a chapter on sailing in Maine from Roger Angell's new memoir, he being the longtime sports writer for The New Yorker.

Mr. Angell has it right, we are pretty much just loafing out here in the water, we sailors. The lobster boats that we pass are doing true work. Somehow we got lucky and can simply enjoy this marvelous spot, the bay with its clean sea water, the fresh breezes, the pine-studded islands. We find all sorts of excuses for getting out on the boat--eating Italians for lunch being one. We hope not to hit anything lurking under the surface. Really, we are just city people who miss the outdoors, who want to re-live all the good times we've had on the water and most of all draw closer to the pulse of the planet.