THE BLUE SNAPPER breaded snapper + blue cheese + brown tartar

Middle-class poor is when you haven't earned the things you think you deserve, but work out affording them anyway. Here's a sandwich that was straight up, out of my daily food budget, and FUCK, it was worth it.

Rant to follow, holler if you #relate:
"AND THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!" ...is something that got said surprisingly a lot in some of my former households, and apartments with my friends through our early and mid 20s. Whether it was just being too drunk to take care of our stuff, or too drunk not to loose it, throwing hazardously crowded parties, or being too hungover to... I'm sure there was more to it than that. Cats? Was it... no, we didn't have cats. ANYWAY. I'm at a point now in life, where I'm realizing I CAN have nice things. I'm an "adult" now (sort of)... I can, have nice things. I just... don't really?

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.