The Good-Luck Gourmet #4: What Do You Want to Bet It's Another Damn Sandwich?

My diet is usually dictated by a combination of curiosity and freshness. In other words, what do I need to eat before it starts to go bad, and how can I make it go with whatever else I have?

I'm always trying to get through what bread I have so it stays fresh, so sandwiches are a popular item. I eat as many sandwiches as possible. Today I threw together a sandwich of thick, flour-dusted ciabatta bread, fresh raw turnip greens, salame, and a single fried egg. I put the thinnest brush of olive oil on the side of the bread next to the greens.

Don't even ask how it was. You KNOW how it was!

Delicious.

It tasted like somebody Italian made it, like one of those dishes they bring out to you that you didn't ask for, at the place where you go where they know you and the guy occasionally sends out something really simple and perfect that you didn't ask for. What's his name? Gaetano, I think. Anyway, then you look at it and you're like, THIS looks interesting, but you eat it on faith and it's "Awwww, yeah. Grazi, Gaetano!"

To which Gaetano always smiles in response, without looking up from whatever he's messing with back there, and kind of waves his free hand plus whatever its holding towards you in an abstracted swatting motion, just grinning that winning grin as he gets his next masterpiece done.

Gaetano knows what's up. Don't even tell him not to put cheese on your minestrone. He'll come right back in a second with that cheese, and put it right on anyway. And you will be wrong, and he will be right, because that guy KNOWS.

So that was the overall impression I got from this simple but delicious sandwich. The kiss of fruit from the olive oil; the peppery, mustardy hinty turnip greens; the thick strength of the bread yielding into warm golden egg-yolkness, and a meaty layer of choice salame.

That's how they spelled it! "Salame." That's how you know it's quality: when they spell it wrong to make it look more ethnic. That might be kind of insulting, though, when you think about it that way - as if Italians can't spell!