Grouper Sandwich

Clockwise from upper left: tomatoes from Jason and Laura's garden, homemade tartar sauce (mayonnaise, lime juice, pickle relish, and New Mexican chile powder), a tempura-fried slab of perfect grouper, and a toasted whole wheat bun.

My iPhone is good at just about everything except taking decent food photos.

There's finally a place in town to get decent fish: The Old Timey Meat Market on Rosewood gets fresh fish in every Thursday. So I bought this gloriously fresh one-pound chunk of grouper, and Lawson mixed up some tempura batter and fried it so we could have fish sandwiches.

He became enamored of fried fish on our Alaska trip, where he ordered halibut and chips at least three different times.

As a first-time home experiment, this was pretty successful. He surveyed a bunch of different tempura batter recipes. He combined the common elements, which were wheat flour and water and egg. And then he cut the fish in half and fried it in a bit of peanut oil. It was not the least bit greasy.

Patty wanted some.

Double-Decker Tuna Brie Melts

I used a few cans of solid white albacore to make a simple tuna salad: touch of mayo, tablespoon of minced fresh parsley, lemon juice, lots of black pepper. I put some of it in between whole wheat bread bread, which I then sauteed in a pan with a tiny bit of butter and olive oil.

Then I piled the rest of the tuna salad on top of the sandwiches, slapped some slices of cheap grocery store Brie on top, and broiled the sandwiches in the toaster oven.

We ate the sandwiches with carrot sticks, fresh mirasol chiles, and Yuengling. The meal reminded me of a childhood lunch fancied up and served for adult dinner.

Fancy Spam Sandwich for Obama

The Republican attempt to smear Barack Obama as an effete, arugula-eating liberal is totally not working on me. Every time some McCain surrogate trots out this meme, my brain drifts away, Homer Simpson-like, to actual arugula. Mmmm...arugula. (Besides which, is it not obvious that Obama was joking? Poking fun at himself for being citified?)

I think this is why I've been buying a lot of arugula lately and putting it in everything. It's subconscious. Maybe the Republicans are actually in the pocket of the K Street arugula lobby.

Anyway, here is a sandwich I ate last week. At the time, I just wanted to try some Spam. I half-jokingly bought Lawson a Spam Single last year, and it's been sitting in the pantry, and I thought it would make a tasty, humorous lunch.

But today I realized it was a nice tribute to the candidate. And since this is convention week, here you are, Mr. Senator.

1. Obama, like me, grew up in Hawai'i, where Spam is the unofficial state food. I sauteed the slice of Spam in a little olive oil until it was a nice golden color on both sides.
2. If the notoriously healthy Obama were to actually eat a Spam sandwich, it would be on whole wheat bread with fresh garden tomatoes. Plus, it's August. Garden tomatoes are in season.
3. Butter, rather than guns, was applied to the toast.
4. On top of the butter was a layer of mustard, because mustard goes well with things like baloney, hot dogs, and Spam. Sorry, I got nothing.
   
5. Arugula goes surprisingly well with mustard and Spam. And its weakness as a political tag gives me hope that Karl Rove is way, way off his game.
   

The sandwich was delicious. Delicious like respect for the Constitutional separation of powers, decision-making based on careful consideration of facts and consequences, and the end of torture as an instrument of empire. Mmm!

Leftovers for Lunch

I love cold leftovers. So for lunch I ate cold collard greens and a sandwich made of a homemade wheat roll, cold flank steak, Dijon mustard, horseradish, lettuce, halved cherry tomatoes, and black pepper.

It's been a good week for food but a bad one for photos. I'll post soon about last night's amazing green fish curry with cucumbers.

Pork Tenderloin Sandwich

I haven't formed a complete opinion about pork tenderloin. I like the lean, boneless idea of it, and whenever I find some on sale that isn't pre-marinated in some horrifying blend of corn syrup, preservatives, artificial flavorings, and food coloring, I buy it. And it's often pretty good. But it's not amazing. I eat it cold on sandwiches, but Lawson seldom comes back for more. It's just a little too bland, even with a flavorful marinade and sauce.

I thought this batch was pretty good. I marinated it in fresh orange juice, oregano, salt, and garlic, then drained it and rubbed it with chile powder, and then roasted it at 450 for about 30 minutes. It was barely pink in the middle.

Here it is a few days later on homemade sandwich bread with horseradish, mustard, mayonnaise, and a ton of lettuce.

Egg in a Frame

Proof that you can make anything look pretentious by serving it with arugula:

I know I keep making posts about lunches, especially ones that require very little cooking, which is not exactly the point here. I guess I'm enjoying the scale of the meal -- small plates, short prep time, lighter ingredients. Lunch is a summer meal.

Tuna Melts

I really love canned tuna. I make tuna salad with curry powder and pecans and grapes, or cubed raw apples and red peppers, or balsamic vinegar and walnuts and parsley -- it's good all kinds of ways. But I think tuna melts should be more basic, and until last night I hadn't made one I was totally happy with.

For the tuna salad:
- 2 cans tuna. I think water-packed chunk light Starkist is A-OK.
- 1 tablespoon mayo
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- a few teaspoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon mild coarse grain mustard
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
- lots of black pepper

Mix together and spread on:
- Homemade bread or other thick, serious bread. I used some half-whole wheat half-white long-fermented bread I made the day before (more on that soon).

Top with:
- 2-3 thin slices of sharp cheddar
- a small handful of grated mozzarella

Saute for one minute in olive oil, then move entire pan to under broiler until cheese is bubbly and brown.

I garnished it with tarragon for no reason other than that it's hard to find uses for tarragon. And as with nearly every summer meal, we ate it with fresh chiles, sliced tomatoes, and steamed okra.

B-T-no-L

Back in 2002 and 2003, all through my gradual unvegetarianing, the Forces of Meat had one weapon more potent than any other. That weapon was bacon, and specifically bacon in combination with fresh tomatoes. Once Lawson had made me my first bacon-tomato sandwich, it was all over.

Here's how he makes one:

- 2 slices storebought multigrain bread
- thin layer on each slice of medium-fat mayonnaise (I find the super-lowfat mayo wretched, and neither of us wants to eat the full-fat stuff 3 times a week all summer)
- one small or 1/2 large real summer tomato. Really, there's no use at all making a bacon-tomato sandwich with pale grocery store tomatoes. You need actual tomatoes grown outside in the sun. Gardens are good. The farmer's market is good. Cut the tomato up in thick slices.
- 3 slices thick-cut bacon, cooked. It's better (crispier and more even) in a pan, but sometimes we use the microwave.

That's all. I love lettuce, but lettuce is totally unnecessary here.

Sandwich for One

Tonight Lawson and I both worked late. He opted for cereal for dinner. I made myself a grilled sandwich with tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, parmesan, fresh basil, and salad greens (and plenty of olive oil). On the side I am eating a whole avocado.

The rainbow trout last night was kind of a fiasco. The bacon grease dripped into the grill and the trout caught on fire...we had to squirt the flames with the little water bottle I use when I cut Lawson's hair...and the bacon unraveled in mummy tatters, half of it burnt and half still pale and chewy. And then after all that drama the trout was bland with hints of ammonia -- not as fresh as it looked. But the acorn squash was excellent.