Heart Shaped Sandwich
March 21st, 2008Filed Under: biscuit, cheddar, cheese, pork cutlet with 0 Comments
Valentine’s Day holds a special crappy place in my heart as a day of the year where I don’t get to eat a lot of sandwiches. Bless the cooks at the Google cafeteria, though – they felt my pain and gave me a handmade pork cutlet breakfast biscuit sandwich. The heart not only commemorates the special day of the year, but also the love that the cooks put into this delicious treat. Also, my inevitable death from heart failure. Mmm.
 P.S – Happy birthday, Drew!
Full Sandwich, Half Dome
December 30th, 2007Filed Under: cheese, mayonnaise, mustard, turkey with 0 Comments
“Hunger,” Benjamin Franklin is alleged to have stated, “is the best pickle.” There are a few different things that might mean — a few of the dictionary definitions for the noun pickle are: a cucumber, or other vegetable or foodstuff, preserved in brine or marinade; a liquid usually prepared with salt or vinegar for preserving or flavoring fish, meat, vegetables, etc.; Informal. a troublesome or awkward situation. So which of those makes sense? [1]
- “Hunger is the best [preserved cucumber]“? That’s just silly, and doesn’t seem to carry any meaning, even as a metaphor.
- “Hunger is the best [predicament]“? Hunger certainly can be quite a predicament — and an extremely troublesome (even lethal) one at that. But is it really the best predicament? Seems a rather unfortunate predicament to me.
- “Hunger is the best [flavorful brine or marinade]“? Finally, we appear to be getting somewhere. If hunger is the best spice, why can’t it be the best brine, too?
Anyway, whatever Benjamin Franklin had in mind, this much is clear: hiking four miles and 3000 vertical feet in Yosemite Valley makes you hungry. And that hunger makes an already-delicious sandwich taste even better.
[1] Interestingly enough, all of these meanings were in use by Franklin’s time: “brine or marinade” dates from c.1440; “cucumber preserved in brine” was first recorded in 1707; and the figurative sense of “sorry plight” was first recorded in 1562.
Black Forest
December 8th, 2007Filed Under: cheese, ham, mustard with 0 Comments
In Europe, “Black Forest ham” is a protected term indicative of a particular geographical origin and method of preparation: the name is applied only to those hams from Germany’s Black Forest region that have been cured and cold smoked with a distinctive flavoring.
In the United States, on the other hand, there are no such restrictions on the use of the term—but it’s still delicious.