A Perfect Sandwich

I don't know what makes a perfect sandwich. I guess it depends a lot on the quality and proportion of the ingredients, but I know that 9 times out of 10 when I make sandwiches, I am not satisfied. Generally they have too much turkey, or not enough jelly, or the bread is too crunchy and hurts the roof of my mouth. In any case, sandwiches have gotten a bad reputation in my kitchen and I tend to not make them very often. Until recently.

The other evening I wasn't feeling top notch and was just hanging out at home reading and catching up on some relaxing. For dinner, all I could think about was a perfect grilled cheese sandwich. By perfect, I mean the kind of grilled cheese where the outside is a little crunchy and very buttery and the inside is warm gooey cheesy goodness. I headed over to the Whole Foods and picked up some German style whole wheat bread, a hunk of gruyere (a nice nutty cheese that is AMAZING for sandwiches) and a beautiful tomato.


I put that panini maker to work and within minutes had a gorgeous sandwich for dinner. It was so amazing. I had it with some fresh fruit, a pickle and some of this fantastic Mild Yellow Swedish mustard that JB brought me a couple weeks ago. The stuff is like no other mustard you have ever had and I want to drink it from a spoon.

I am also searching for a killer egg sandwich. I try something new at least once a week, but generally it includes good bread, two fried eggs, some kind of special cheese, fresh herbs and a spread (pesto, mustard, cranberry sauce, olive oil, the list goes on.) The desire for this sandwich comes from a couple places.

First, the movie Spanglish featured Thomas Keller's BLT Fried Egg and Cheese Sandwich which rewound to watch Adam Sandler make 3 or 4 times while I drooled. It was written up in Food & Wine about a year ago and I tried to make it one night while Jared was away. It was not all I had hoped for, although the F&W photo still makes me drool, and thus I started on the search for the perfect egg sandwich.


The second inspiration is the Jerusalem Egg Sandwich from the Andala Coffee House just up the street from us. A couple months after we moved here, I started going to Andala every Wednesday morning for a networking event. My first or second time, someone ordered this sandwich, and I have been in love with it ever since. It's a scintillating combination of eggs, parsley and tomatoes wrapped in a toasted Mediterranean pita that I would recommend to anyone.


My egg sandwiches are good, but this one has me coming back week after week and nothing I have made has accomplished that yet. I'll keep trying but if you have a great sandwich recipe that you want to share, please send it along.