the strawberry caprese

Someone told me recently (or I read it on Buzzfeed, in any case some RELIABLE source #accuratereporting) that this year was poised to yield the very best strawberry crop in decades. Why? I haven't looked into it, but it's kept me with strawberries on the brain all summer. I just want to eat them all the time, make tarts, crisps, and pie, put them in salads, and start a jam factory in my apartment.

Alas, like most summer resolutions, this has gone almost entirely unattended. So here, to make it's debut in my summer, a strawberry featured sandwich, that is not gluten-free, so I couldn't fucking eat it anyway. But not to worry, this was one of the birthday sandwiches, so my parents were there to eat it, and tell me how nice it was. Hopefully this is not the last you'll be seeing of strawberry sandwiches this summer, and maybe(?) I will get around to making that jam. 

maple Hawaiian grilled cheese

So it was my birthday last week! The family tradition for birthdays in recent years, is that we all take work off, and try to spend the day together. And birthdays are awesome, because you put thought into what it is exactly, that you would be happiest spending the day doing, and have everyone participate in. So when my parents asked, I pretty quickly came up with a day of making sandwiches. I invited them over, and had them bring odds and ends from their ever-full kitchen of untold wonders, and made a variety of sandwiches for them, and of course stopped to photograph, so I could get some blog posts out of it. Here's one of them, and you'll see a few more in some past and coming days. 

It was a nice birthday. I like having something totally unnecessary, but satisfying to do. And I think the sandwiches were a hit? I was going to make 3 of this one, so we could all have, and I was kind of looking forward to this one in particular, but as it turns out, I couldn't eat this sandwich because unless expressedly stated, cured meats are NOT gluten-free. But I snacked on some of this delicious Quebec raw milk cheddar. And everything smelled really nice. 

Oh, and then at night, I had a little booze picnic in the park with friends. There were sparklers. That was nice too. It would be great to spend every day doing exactly the things that make you happy, and I try. And of course, it's easier when your wishes and tastes are simple. 

salmon ALT with mint & honey

Totally refreshing summer sandwich.

For pretty much the last month, it has been stiflingly hot in Toronto. I'm talking 35°+ AT NIGHT. That's 95°F Americans. So at times when you have sweat dripping down the backs of your legs, sitting in your apartment in your underwhatnots, chugging ice water by the pint, all you want to eat is something that comes out of a fridge, not off a stove.

WHAT WOULD MANUEL SOLANO DO? My friend Manuel is so good in the kitchen. I trust him implicitly. He has such instincts when it comes to food. We spent time together while both living in Lyon, and would collaborate on food for our friends, and cook for one another. I have a number of friends who are easily better than me at executing food, but he always sticks out, he just has this way of making something so simple, yet always catches me by surprise. And that, for me, is the greatest delight.

Anyhow, this is something I made with Manuel in mind. I'll definitely have to do a collaboration post in the near future.

black & blue apple grilled cheese

This title gets its name from the SMOKED blue cheese used. Take a peek!

Honestly, blue cheese has always freaked me the fuck out. In fact, dairy on the whole had been a source of anxiety for years. I think once, when I was like 10, I had an unfortunate experience with chunky milk, and after that, I was just really, apprehensively, cautious when dealing with dairy. Milk had to be freshly opened, cheese had to be firm, yogurt had to be no more than a nano-second old. Blue cheese was just some scary, and revolting horror my parents kept in the fridge for posterity. Surely. Anyhow, older, wiser, more adventurous, and cheese being the most glorious of human discoveries, I thought it was about time that I tried some blue cheese. This stuff is Blue Haze, a smoked blue cheese from somewhere in Ontario. Appreciably smoky, but with a nice, rounded creaminess that I wasn't anticipating. I was expecting it to be all sharp, with an aftertaste of food poisoning. I guess it's another childhood misconception to let go of, this cheese was the shit!

The Isemanburger

It's about time this blog got some MEAT.

I'm always intrigued when a restaurant has a namesake on the menu. It means they're repping it as their best offering, and in the case of a burger, it's the way they think it's best served. The way that has the staying power to anchor that menu, something people tell their friends about, and can keep coming back for for years. I wouldn't say I'm huge into burgers or anything, but a few weeks ago, when I had some friends visiting, they were positively salivating for a burger one afternoon. I scoured around the great selection of kraft restaurants in this restauro-centric neighbourhood I live in, and it turned out, the closest one had a burger on the menu, only one, and it was the item given the honour of carrying the restaurant's namesake. And furthermore, it was the tastiest sounding burger on offer. We went. We ordered 3 of the same. We ate. We collapsed in a pleasure-and-rendered-fat-dazed stupor. I won't tell you what was in it, because I don't want to upstage this post, but I'll share that later that week, I couldn't get the burger out of my mind. I went back, but alas, they are closed on Mondays, so I thought it best to march over to a burger-specific joint. Nice, local, well-fed, ethical meat, done as many ways as one could want to chose from, and they too, had a namesake burger. And as it happened, that was the burger with all the with-all that I most wanted. And it was good. So the week after that, I still couldn't shake this hankering for burgers. I decided to get a few patties at the local organic farmer's market near me, and make a signature burger of my own. This is the way I find myself topping a burger every time I make them. I just don't think there's a better way to serve a burger. So voilà, THE ISEMANBURGER.

avocado + shiitake + ginger + mint

Hey glorious readers and friends. First sandwich back:

So, honestly, I never eat sandwiches anymore. No gluten = total change in diet. I'll make myself some gluten-free muffins, or pancakes every now and then, but for the most part, my main source of carbohydrates is LETTUCE. No joke. I eat a lot of salads. Lots of vegetables. I pretty much avoid grains and starches 90% of the time. Yea, even rice. Though sometimes I make my salads into spring rolls. I also rarely eat meat. Maybe once a week at most, sometimes not for months at a time. I even hold off on the cheese and eggs most days a week, and seem to be doing just fine. I'm not prescribing any diet. I'm not saying everyone should go paleo/gluten-free/or vegan. Do what makes your body feel good, and educate yourself.

In turn, this sandwich is very befitting of the re-naugural post, because were it not in sandwich form, this is pretty representative of what I eat on a daily basis. This wasn't really deliberate, this was just what's in my fridge. I imagine this will change, as I try to cultivate a food blog. Anyway, I love cooking with ginger. Ginger and mint, I don't think I could live without, at this point. Shiitake mushrooms are definitely the standout mushroom for me. They've just got this buttery, sweetness to them. Oh, and did I mention lime? At any given point, I have a bowl at least half full of limes in my kitchen. Running out would be the worst. Oh yea, and unless you previously read about this "bread", this post is VEGAN.

Behold, gluten-free "bread" :(

Gluten-free "bread": a continuing farce in the life of a gluten-intolerant lover of glutenous foods.



Life is a cruel joke.

Hello world

Hello world. 

As forecasted, albeit a bit late, Glorious Sandwiches returns! This makes me happy. Happy to announce. Happy to mean sincerely. Happy to have back in my own life. 

It IS just a silly blog. Yet another silly blog, in the long list of trivial things on the internet, for readers and authors alike to spend their time on, and become disconnected from life. But what I've come to realize, growing up in a time when people spend increasingly more of their lives online, is that there's really something to that, and something to how we are coming to use the internet, online media, social media websites, etc., not at all, in fact, to disconnect from life, but to become more connected. Go read a book, I said to myself, come to the park he said, you can do that later, she said. Well, in my two years' hiatus from this blog, there grew an enlarging sense of absence. 

From the few hours a week I used to spend making sandwiches, and putting them on the internets, I gained a real sense of purpose. Which isn't to say that I derived my sense of purpose as a human being from sandwiches. No, not that. But there was a satisfaction that I got from being connected to something I liked doing, something that I thought was neat, and something I could share with others, who also thought, "Hey, this is neat." It's good to have an outlet. It's great to do something purely for the gratification of doing it. Whether anyone else gives a shit, or not. And it's especially fun if it's something you can throw out there, so other people can share in the minor, but important joy of such things. So look, or don't look, this blog is back. And I'm going to try to challenge myself, and offer a higher caliber of luncheon entertainment. With occasional focus on gluten-free, paleo, vegan, and other dietary restriction-friendly foods. So if you are looking, welcome, I hope you enjoy, or welcome back, it's nice of you to come. Comment if you like. Share with a friend if you think there's some small joy to be had. 

ANYHOO, a reintroduction! Read on...