Last Sunday my friend Sarah and I hosted a baby shower for Giovanna. From the beginning of our planning, I imagined serving sandwiches with the crusts cut off. I don’t know why. I guess it just seems like a really classy thing to have at a ladies’ luncheon: sandwiches with the crusts cut off. I made egg salad, and while I thought about fancying it up a bit with some fresh dill, I opted to make it more like the egg salad you’d find in the basement of a United Church bazaar, but with less mayonnaise. It really is the best sort. I also decided to make a very European style of sandwich because there would be Italian people at this shower: So on white Wonder bread, I prepared ham, swiss cheese, and Boston leaf lettuce sandwiches, with a squirt of Dijon mustard. The sandwiches were a big hit. And the best part was that there were left-overs for me to feed the Beast.
Beast: I’m home!
Foodie: Oh good, you bought potato chips.
Beast (seeing the loaf of brown bread on the counter): Where’s the white bread?
Foodie: You said you were going to buy it because you were going to pick up potato chips.
Beast: I thought you said you were going to buy it because you had to go get brown bread.
Foodie: Well I thought you were joking because why would I go out and buy two different loaves of bread? And in the case that you weren’t joking, I figured you’d buy it yourself.
Beast: I’m not joking! I hate brown bread! How can you not know this about me?
Foodie: I thought you were just being difficult, like as a joke. It’s not that different from white bread you know, taste-wise.
Beast: Are you kidding me? When you eat that shit all you taste is the brown and you can’t taste the good stuff you put between it!
Foodie: You’re crazy. Well, I need to shower so if you want white bread that badly why don’t you go out and buy a loaf.
Beast (looking very pathetic): O k a y. I’m just so tired after working all day and I’m still taking my medication which I think makes me more tired.
Foodie: Do you want me to go get it for you?
Beast: No, no. I’m just being a baby. It’s fine. I’ll put my shoes back on and go get it.
Foodie: Why don’t you take my bike? You’ll be back in under five minutes.
Beast: How do you expect me to ride a bike in my current condition (see previous post)? Do you know how painful that would be?
Foodie: Well then I’ll go on my bike and be back in under two minutes.
Beast: No. I’m going. You have your shower and then we’ll have our sandwiches.
And that’s exactly what happened.
The Beast prepared two egg salad sandwiches and one ham and swiss. I had one of each. And then we watched two episodes of Deadwood, a show to which we recently became addicted.
Foodie: This isn’t a fancy dinner, but man oh man do I like egg salad, especially this batch. It may be some of the best egg salad I’ve ever had, don’t you think?
Beast: It’s good. (Taking another bite and really thinking about it). It’s excellent in fact.
The next night we had sandwiches again. And we watched more Deadwood.
Foodie: Can you pause the show please?
Beast: What is it?
Foodie: I just realized that I made you sandwiches for dinner two nights in a row and you never complained.
Beast: Why would I complain?
Foodie: It’s not really a real dinner.
Beast: I’m grateful for every dinner that you make.
Foodie: You really are, aren’t you.
Beast: Of course I am! If you didn’t feed me I would eat Macdonald’s every night.
Foodie: I think these sandwiches are really good too.
Beast: Yes, you said that last night as well. I’m honestly happy with anything you make. Honestly. Except for whole wheat pasta. I hate it. And same goes for the whole wheat bread but you know that. Stop trying to trick me into eating it.
Foodie: Fair enough.
Beast: And can I be really honest here?
Foodie: Please do!
Beast: Those roasted root vegetables that you always do in the winter, with the meat loaf, I’m not crazy about it.
Foodie: That is one of my all-time favourite meals! I could eat it once e week easily.
Beast: We do eat it once a week and it’s not that great.
Foodie: You’re f–king nuts. That is such a good dinner. Don’t you love how I sprinkle the remaining bits of Lipton’s onion soup mix that I use to make the meat loaf right on top of the vegetables? It really unifies everything.
Beast: Can I press play now? Actually, I’m going to pour myself a bourbon. Do you want one?
That’s the thing with Deadwood: They drink whiskey for breakfast and make it look so glorious. We’ve been drinking a lot of bourbon as a result.
Foodie: Yes, I’ll have one of those. And I put chopped up dill pickles in that egg salad and you hate pickles and you didn’t even know I put them in there. And you loved that egg salad. You loved it.
Foodie: ***
Beast: **
Foodie I just wanted to confirm positively that those were in fact the best egg salad sandwiches that I’ve ever had as well.