For lunch yesterday: an open face sandwich on homemade rye bread, with fancy-pants cultured butter, sliced radishes, and a sprinkling of fleur de sel. On the side are the radish tops, quickly tossed in a hot sauté with olive oil, salt, and pepper. They turned gorgeously crisp and were slightly bitter, like arugula.
For lunch today, I had BLTs planned. But for some reason, the tomato tasted funny to me, with a faint chemical flavor. It tasted fine to my sous chef, however, so he was perfectly content to have it all to himself. For him, then, a standard BLT, with mesclun standing in for the lettuce.
For me, a BLC (bacon, lettuce, and cucumber) was an adequate and crunchy substitute.
I couldn’t possibly serve a BLT (or a BLC) without a smear of mayonnaise on one piece of bread, but I did gussy it up a bit with a little mascarpone on the other piece. It was buttery and creamy, a luxurious complement to the crisp bacon and rustic multi-grain bread.
For lunch: a Serrano ham sandwich with Manchego, shaved fennel, and fig jam, on a pretzel baguette, courtesy of Hannah’s Bretzel, one of the best sandwich shops in the city. A sliced Gala apple rounded out the menu.
There is a proper post on its way shortly, I promise.