A Great Sandwich

Ann and I often remark to each other that it is damn near impossible to find a great sandwich. I am not sure why that is exactly, because a great sandwich is not at all hard to make.

A Great Sandwich

At long last, the weather was truly nice yesterday, a glimpse of fall, and it seemed perfect for sitting out on the back patio. Though we had thought to go out for dinner, I made an executive decision to stay home, enjoy the weather, drink a little wine, and make a really awesome sandwich.

What makes a great sandwich? Let's see: great bread, high quality ingredients, and a little care. That's all it takes, no matter what kind of sandwich. So why is it so bloody hard to find a great sandwich?

I was in the mood for an Italian cold cut sandwich, so I set out with that in mind. And since I had to make a Costco run yesterday, I availed myself of several ingredients there. First, the bread. They don't bake their own, but they do parbake decent bread daily, and while it is not the best in the land, it is pretty decent. I grabbed a loaf of rosemary parmesan bread.

Then over to the refrigerator cases where I got a pack of mixed capocollo/salame and another of prosciutto, again not superior quality, but decent enough for a sandwich.

At the restaurant, I remembered a few slices of unloved provolone in the bottom of the cheese bin and I found a couple of super-ripe Cherokee Purple tomatoes on the counter, so ripe that they wouldn't make it to dinner the next night before needing to be pitched.

At home, we had plenty of butter lettuce, olive oil, and, though not a traditional Italian sub ingredient, a roasted turkey breast.

That's it for the great bread and high quality ingredients. Now for the care, as if selecting great bread and high quality ingredients is not already taking great care. I split the loaf of bread, gave it a good drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper and put it under the broiler until nicely toasted. Out of the broiler, it got a good bath in great olive oil and healthy sprinkles of oregano and crushed red pepper flakes.

From there, it was just a matter of assembling the sandwich and devouring it.

Now why is that so hard?