The Sandwich Cure
After the Tour de Italian Deli, I admitted to being wrong. Today, I’m putting the exclamation point on that earlier statement.
Seriously, how could I have been so wrong? Only a few months ago, I had thought that Italian sandwiches should be consumed on the spot. And you know what? Perhaps in some cities and towns that’s actually true. But here in the Capital Region, I’m coming to realize that regardless of if you’re ordering cold cuts or a hot sub, that sandwich is going to need some time to cure.
The issue is the bread. It’s dry, and doesn’t have much flavor. So it absolutely needs to absorb some of the moisture from the sandwich within and soften a bit. The other solution would be to toast the rolls under the salamander like they do at Hoagie Haven in Princeton. But nobody seems to do that here.
I’ve also come to terms that Burnt My Fingers is probably right when it comes to the sandwiches at Roma in Saratoga Springs being superior to those from the Roma in Latham.
Here’s the tale of two recent sandwiches.
Dithering at the Diner
Breakfast. I love it. Lately, I’ve been trying to make sure to eat a little something every day before I leave the house. Because the truth is that while I love breakfast, most of my life I’ve been happy to skip it.
Now that I’m older, I don’t step outside until I’ve had my coffee and some cereal.
The cereal can take many forms. Once the winter is here in earnest, I suspect one of the forms will be slow cooker oatmeal. But for now it’s either granola and yogurt, or flakes and milk. If we have any of the Cowbella creamline whole milk on hand, it’s flakes. If not, it’s granola. These days there is only one milk for me, and that’s this non-homogenized full-fat variety from our local pasture-raised Jersey girls. Man, that stuff is good.
Do you know what’s even better than breakfast? Second breakfast. But when you care about the integrity of your food, and where the ingredients may come from, eating breakfast out can be a bit of a minefield.
Fortunately, I’ve found an answer that I can live with, and I think it will make some of you happy.
Cities
It’s been awhile since we’ve had a musical accompaniment to a post. Well, today’s post is heavily inspired by this Talking Heads track.
Oh, Albany. There is so much potential in this little city of ours. The good news is that we’re seeing more of it. I really wanted to make it to last weekend’s Half Moon Market. That was a huge step forward in doing something Troy-like in Albany.
I’m constantly amazed at the factions that have grown up in the Capital Region over time. People don’t cross rivers. They stay in their little hamlets. And they are fiercely loyal to their towns. This may not be entirely a bad thing. It creates lovely pockets in time, like Watervliet, where things seem to have stood still for quite a while.
It also means you get amazing places stuck in the past like the Schuyler Bakery, Deacon Blues, and Gus’s Hot Dogs.
Cities can do great things. They can also do awful things. And sometimes it’s hard to tell which things are awful and which things are great. Today I’ve got two developing stories to share, one from Troy and one from Albany. I’m going to present them to you with little comment, since I haven’t been following the issues all that closely.That said, it feels like these are both on the awful side of the spectrum.
The 2015 Candy Bowl
The World Series is happening. That I know. I even know that it’s between the Mets and the Royals. I was going to say the Cubs for a second, and then I remembered that was the playoffs and Back to the Future had it all wrong.
I’m even a Mets fan. Of course, that’s only if you come from the school of thought that suggests once a fan, always a fan. I couldn’t tell you any of the pitchers or who plays first base. But my grandfather was a Mets fan, and that made me a Mets fan. My first major league game was at Shea Stadium. A double header against the Cubs, actually. I cheered for Mookie. I lived through the Strawberry scandal. And I remember as a kid watching the World Series game where the ball rolled between someone’s legs and the Mets pulled the most unlikely victory out of the jaws of defeat, and jumping for joy even though I was alone in my family’s guest room.
These days, sports are almost completely off my radar, unless somehow there is food involved. Yes, it was cool to see American Pharoah run in Saratoga this summer. But to be completely honest, I was probably more excited by the Double ShackBurger. Man, that was good.
Which brings me to the only sporting contest going on this week that I actually care about, and that’s the 2015 Candy Bowl.
How To Live Forever
In our last post, the cheery thought of the day was, “everybody dies.” Well, I thought that needed a companion piece, just to talk anyone off the ledge.
People seem to be obsessed with healthful diets. Many of them stop just shy of offering eternal youth. But the implication is that if you eat enough kale, you will never get cancer, and you will have vitality well into your advancing years. Kale is just an example, since this dark leafy green was most recently the wunderkind of the produce aisle.
Some experts will tell you to avoid carbs entirely. Others will say the opposite and have a diet that’s rich with whole grains. The Atkins people seem to rise up once every generation. The low-fat diet crowd has been revealed as a complete fraud, and yet its legacy remains. The calorie counters of yore offer a steady drumbeat in the background. I’m loving the call for full-fat grassfed dairy these days, but I know from history that down the road we’ll be shocked at our own naivete.
Eat like the people from the Mediterranean. Drink wine like the French. Consume mass quantities of yogurt like the Russians. Eat fish like the Japanese. Save the earth as you save your health and go vegan.
Well, just last night I realized something important. Everyone has it backwards. The key to living forever is more about cooking than it is about eating.
It all started simply enough with Mrs. Fussy packing her lunch.
Food Without Integrity
Bacon is bad for you? Of course it is.
I don’t want to make light of cancer. Cancer sucks. But as far as I can tell, cancer is like death’s safety net. Bear with me for just a moment. Everyone dies. That’s inescapable. Most people die of other things. The list of things you can die from is shockingly long. And some are so banal, it’s hard to imagine how they can be fatal. Actually, it’s not that hard to imagine. Life is fragile.
Cancer would seem to exist so that if perchance, you manage to avoid dying by one of the other tens of thousands of things out there that can kill you, you won’t go on living forever. In the end, the cancer will finally get you.
Sure. There are things we can do to speed up the cancer. And avoiding those things would be good. Of course there are some things we can’t avoid. Drinking the water. Breathing the air. Eating the bacon.
The truth is that it’s not just bacon. Lots and lots of food and beverages might hasten our demise by cancer (or other things) to a certain degree. But you won’t find me giving up young raw milk cheeses either.
You’ve got to ask yourself, is the juice worth the squeeze. Which brings us to the issue behind the issue.
Fall and the Pears of Perpetual Hardness
Raking is part of living in the northeast. Yes, you could pay someone to do it for you. But that’s cheating. That’s like paying someone to plow your driveway. When you sign on to living with four intense seasons, you’ve got to own it.
Or maybe that’s just the crazy talking.
After all, if it weren’t for Mrs. Fussy and her insistence on having a non-shaggy lawn, I would still be pushing my manual fly-wheel mower over the grass. I loved the peace and quiet of the thing, but the electric mower massively outperforms the mechanical dinosaur.
At least when winter comes, I can still shovel us out with an honest to goodness shovel instead of some monstrous snow-eating machine.
None of which means I have to be happy about any of it.
The End of Cooking
Did I mention that the dishwasher finally died? When we bought our house, one of the first things that we did was replaced the dishwasher.
The house came with its original dishwasher still barely chugging along. Technically, it still worked. It was just loud as hell. It sounded like it was screeching when it ran. The pitch would drive me upstairs whenever a load was being cleaned. So mostly, we ran the dishwasher overnight.
To make matters worse, it didn’t clean very well, and all our dishes came out with a weird smell. I have no idea what it was. My guess is some kind of build up from some overly floral scented detergent used by the previous owners for decades.
But it still ran. It ran for over twenty years. The one we bought didn’t even come close to lasting half as long. I hear from Lowe’s that the our newest dishwasher has arrived, but it’s not going to be installed until Wednesday. That means six more days of hand washing dishes and getting by with the bare minimum of cooking humanly possible.
It’s been getting ugly.
Belly Busting Burger Brackets
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The Fussy Little Tour de Burger will never happen. Hopefully we don’t have to rehash the reasons. But I’m still excited about doing a winter tour of chicken wings in downtown Schenectady. That, however, is many months away.
People do love hamburgers, and I can’t say that I blame them. I love a good burger too. My favorite one locally is still the deep-fried Buffalo burger at Swifty’s. But my all time favorite may be from The Original Joe’s in San Francisco.
Somehow all of my favorite burger joints always seem to burn down in grease fires.
The Capital Region has seen a massive influx of higher quality burger chains in the recent months. Smashburger opened up by Trader Joe’s. Burger 21 set up shop on what used to be the ice cream stand just outside the Hoffman’s Playland parking lot. BurgerFi is brand spanking new up the street in Latham. Of course, there is Sonic, but they aren’t playing in the same league. You know who is? Five Guys, even though this chain has been in the area for a while.
It just so happened that All Over Albany put together a tasting panel to figure out which of these burgers reigned supreme. It wasn’t just for burgers, but included the fries as well. And once again, I was able to go on a food outing with some of my favorite eaters, including one who I’ve only taunted online.
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