marinated white anchovies, with soft-cooked egg, roasted onions, salsa verde and frisee
The recipe is straightforward: soft-cook an egg, toss lettuce with oil and vinegar, toast bread, roast onions and make some salsa verde. Assemble and eat! This ‘wich was easy took cook, easy to eat and if you like salty anchovies, delicious to eat (of course if you don’t like salty anchovies, what in the world are you doing making this sandwich?). This is the kind of sandwich I’d never order out but is perfect for a lazy Sunday or if you want to impress a date on a weekday. The egg gives it nice richness, while the frisee and (of course) anchovies give it salt and vinegar. Yum.

We quickly realized that we cut our bread way too thick and after toasting it became a bit challenging to eat without shredding the insides of our mouths (a la captain crunch). The bread should be about a quarter to half an inch thick. The picture quality on these isn’t very good, but don’t let that keep you from closing your eyes, visualizing the sandwich sitting there on the plate, no one’s around, go right ahead, take a little bite, one little bite won’t be noticed, you walk up and can already smell the vinegar and oil, a look over your shoulder, no one’s around, you raise it to your mouth and …

Open:

Constructed:

Constructed, again:

At the easier end there’s recipes for PB&J (with rhubarb and pectin powder) and a light goat cheese and veggie ‘wich. At the harder end there’s red-wine braised flank steak and lobster with sweet-potato slaw. Most of them are pretty involved, but they don’t feel TOO impossible.

The other important aspect of sandwich books is how proud you feel when you make one of their sandwiches. As the sandwiches get more complicated, you get happier that you made it, you feel good about your project. The weird thing about cook books is that you get a bit of this pride boost from just having the book around! You think to yourself “oh, one day I could make this delicious-looking ‘lamb with mint sauce on roasted red pepper-brie-mint bread’, but not today.” (Recipe from Margaux Sky) It’s this potential that compels people to buy these insane books: the push to be a better chef and the illusion that we have infinite time for slow-roasting meats and baking breads. Impossible recipes never get made. They need to be in the book to set the ceiling, but need to be buffeted with many more approachable ones. Anyhow, back to the ‘pride curve’, everyone’s is different: here’s mine:

Sure ‘Wichcraft has a decent distribution of sandwich strategy, but how do they make you feel? Turns out, pretty damn good:

The book is great, go buy it, block off a few hours, make a ‘wich and be proud!

What’s your pride curve? Got a book that makes you feel bad because it’s just too damn hard?

My only complaint about this little operation is that they bill themselves as the “last word on sandwiches,” AHEM, I beg to differ. Maybe your fame has gotten to you Tommy-boy: you ain’t god, yet.

Without further adieu, here’s ‘Wichcraft’s pastrami sandwich. Why they refuse to call it a “Ruben,” I’ll never understand. It was crunchy and delicious, if a little skimpy on the pastrami. All the flavors get a turn to be noticed and none of them dominated the taste. I especially liked the mustard flavor at the end of each bite.

Ingredients:

• pastrami
• grilled rye bread
• swiss cheese
• sauerkraut
• mustard