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You Want Frites Wit Dat?

Leson
She certainly did. Nancy loved this spicy coppa and grilled eggplant on soft whole wheat she had in Holland.

It's Sandwich City.  Nancy says "I'm lookin' at this week's Seattle Weekly's'The City's Best Sandwiches,' the New York Times had a killer special issue – even Bethany Jean Clement of the Seattle Times was writing about Five Great Chicken sandwiches that aren't Chic-fil-A.  So what do you think about this?" she asked me.

I told her I thought there was no reason why "...any normal human being cannot make a sandwich at home as good as anything you would go to a store and buy."  Ms. Leson disagreed.

Nance told me about a trip to Aria Food and Bakery in Kirkland.  Aria doesn't have a website but here's a link to their FB page.

"It's a Persian bakery that makes Persian pizzas as well as sandwiches.  I had the Salad Olivier" which she described as a mixture of egg salad, chicken salad and potato salad, plus other stuff spread on Aria's house made flatbread.  For some reason she seemed to believe that couldn't be made by a home cook.

I still insist that I could make that at home assuming I could round up the usual Salad Olivier suspects in the original Russian version as created by chef Lucien Olivier: Veal tongues, grouse, crawfish, capers, and smoked duck are just the start. And since the Russians are the world's top consumers of it, plenty of mayo, too.

The most comprehensive listing of American sandwiches I've seen yet was in the recent NY Times'  Field Guide to the American Sandwich.  They gotta million of 'em, I tellya.  It's well worth a look.

Some of my favorite sandwiches are good old ham n' cheese, corned beef on rye with mustard and slaw, and of course the savory, spicy and crunchy banh mi sandwich as laid out in Andrea Nguyen's Banh Mi Handbook.   I'm also partial to a cream cheese and olive.  Lately I've been making my own giardiniera olive salad for home made muffulettas.  And about once every two years I treat myself to a cold Velveeta and bacon on toasted Thomas' English muffin.  Go ahead and sneer.  it's really good.

Dick's Tip: For variety's sake try eating one half of your sandwich upside down (the sandwich, not you).   Nancy thinks I'm nuts (what else is new?) but I swear you can really tell the difference.

So, what's your favorite thing to put in bread?

"A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is better than bad sex."

– Billy Joel

Dick Stein joined KNKX in January 1992. He retired in 2020 after three decades on air. During his storied radio career, he hosted the morning jazz show, co-hosted and produced "Food for Thought" with Nancy Leson and wrote and directed the Jimmy Jazzoid live radio musical comedies and 100 episodes of Jazz Kitchen.