A Stack of Dishes

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Gail Watson

A Favorite Summer Sandwich

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Summertime and easy living. Sure. But not for me. Summer is a busy time in the wedding biz, but it’s intense and beautiful and I love sipping a white wine at the end of the day when the sun is still in the sky. 

Finding time to cook and eat well poses it’s challenges, and this week it’s even harder. I am alone in the kitchen as everyone is off on holiday and my fiance is away for the summer. 

So the fall back is sandwiches or a staple of cold premade plain pasta that I’ll toss into something fun. Loving the high protein pastas from Barilla. I love pasta like most, but the high carbs give me the heebee jeebees. More on pasta salads and such later- I digress. 

So ok, Sandwiches are not exactly a huge deal culinarily. But it’s more about taking some of this and that and making a lunch better than just meat on bread. I truly believe this is in response to the D(uh)ry sandwiches my mother put into my lunch box when I was a kid (that is when she in fact did such things). Two slices of Arnold Farm White (for those who don’t know, a dense white bread- nothing, I mean NOTHING, like the fluffy bread my pals were eating), upon this bread a thin layer of mayo or butter and then a flat piece of ham, maybe two. Bleh. 

Once when I was in about 4th grade I asked my mother to make me tomato sandwiches. Oh how I love toasted thick bread with a serious slab of mayo and then thick juicy ripe red tomatoes with salt. The next day was a soggy, gooey mess of a lunch that had leaked all over my vanilla wafer cookies (ugh, even dessert was bland and d(uh)ry). 

 In order to execute this properly, the next day I had her put the different ingredients in my lunch box separately, each wrapped in it’s own plastic cocoon,  and I composed it on the spot. It was heaven…. but the point is an 8 year old had to guide mom on how to make a meaningful  sandwich- and trust me, I knew the difference. 

So now, when I make a sandwich it must have balance and grace or it sends me into shudders. 

Ripening tomatoes on my counter got tossed into left over lemony salad dressing with thin slices of red onion and put in the fridge to marinate for a day. 

Then a layer of chevre was spread on the grilled chiabata bread before the tomatoes.  Thin layers of proscuitto were fluffed and draped and the whole thing topped with fresh baby arugula. 

The whole thing is a wonderful creamy, crunchy, spicey, salty, vinegary delight. 

Ok, I was wrong- a well put together sandwich IS a culinarily important thing. 

Enjoy my doves!

Food as Love, and Doilies

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rice pudding, doily
A cup of creamy rice pudding.
Over the past several months I have been gearing up to begin a food and photography blog for myself. My love of food and image would have a place to spill out to, to encircle others, to give love and share love.I had many names that I came up with, all appealing to the different aspects of my personality and attitudes toward food {the healthy, the honoring of traditions, the “hey, let’s not get too serious and just enjoy”…} but I found myself circling back to one thought. What is the most profound thing about food? What

is it that just makes me feel so compelled the need to send it out, to share?And the same two answers just kept coming back to me.

I was in NYC during September 11th. I was working at a photo shoot in a penthouse space on the Westside of Manhattan. I had seen the gaping, smoldering hole of the first attack and my first thought was, “we will never be the same”. Even without knowing that it was an attack I had felt it’s magnitude. As the morning wore on someone had turned on a radio. From it bleated the mind bending updates on the scene from downtown and the news that there was an attack in DC and another plane down in PA. The voices on the radio were strained and adrenaline spiked and it made me think of WWII and people huddled around radios for the latest. We all walked around dazed and in shock.

That shock continued through the week and I was right, we were not going to be the same.

Some dear friends of mine invited me that Friday to their Shabbat table. I am not Jewish, but to be amongst friends was the solace that I needed. Their apartment is in Greenwich Village is on the top floor of a beautiful old building which had a balcony that through French doors we could see the glow from the lights and smoke of ground zero. This was our backdrop and it was staggering.
Later as we gathered around the table, holding hands, and the prayers were sung and the candles lit, that I realized that the warm reflection that was created by loving faces gathered around a table was what life was all about and where our best moments often happen-Around A Table, Shared. That joining together created a warm and safe place and kept out that smoldering glow outside the window, it was bigger and more powerful than anything someone else could do to you, and it was precious and invaluable.
And that leads me to my Auntie Jo, or Fofi as she is known in the family.
Joesphine was my Mother’s elder sister, and by far the most amazing woman I have ever known. She had an incredible grace and beauty in the way she handled everything. She was a remarkable smart woman, the sort of woman who had she been born in my day would have been a force in the workplace. Instead she was a force within the family. She was the quintessential homemaker, a gracious hostess, and fierce cook and insistent upon using doilies.
Sadly we lost her this week to a long struggle with cancer, which cruelly landed in her colin, making it unable to eat for the last months of her life. I tell you this because for us around her it was more than frustrating. Fofi and taught us all to equate food with love and giving love, and here, the dearest person in the world to us could not receive our love, we could not nurture her back to health, we could not give her pleasure or solace.
Josephine always had an amazing ability to make everyone feel special. Jo comes from the Spanish side of my family, which is was always a warm and glowing sharp contrast to my chillier Irish side. She spoke a fluent Spanish and I have a memory of being with her once at a restaurant. She was always curious and always wanted to learn more, especially about food. I recall her speaking to a busboy in Spanish and making him blush with shyness. On the way out she touched him on the arm and said one more thing to him and then cupped his cheek. He smiled and nodded brightly to her, and I could see on his face how she had blown away that shyness and he gravitated toward her. She was like that.
But let me also be clear, she was a strong and often stubborn woman. She had her standards, she didn’t put up with whining or feeling sorry for yourself and then there were those doilies.
At her funeral I recanted a story about her. It’s one of those snapshot moments that were really of no real significance but just encapsulated her. It was Thanksgiving at her house and a few of us were in the kitchen putting together the dessert table. We are a family of great cooks and chefs and there are always just as many desserts served as there were dishes for dinner- needless to say we take our food and sweets seriously. There was always some of the same things year after year and Jo always, ALWAYS had a bowl of freshly whipped cream.
Now imagine a kitchen full of fantastic cooks all hustling to get coffee service and desserts out onto the table. My Mother grabbed the whipped cream bowl and saucer and headed out the door. Jo stopped her- “May! where’s the doily?!” to which my mother answered, “oh come on Jo…” To that Jo whisked across the kitchen and with pinky finger out gently but sternly made it clear that a doily was to go under the plate and just so, as she peeled the paper doilies apart and carefully arranged them under the bowl. That was Jo- in the midst of chaos, there would be beauty.
Later, at the post burial luncheon, photo books were passed around of her. And sure enough, one picture was of a holiday dessert table, and right in front was that bowl of whipped cream- and nestled underneath was a doily.
In honor of Josephine I begin this journey of creating my own voice and song of food. I owe Fofi much, oh so much…. and especially my love and curiosity of food and cooking and sharing tables. My greatest wish is you share this table with me as well as those gathered around yours.