Worst Sandwich Week Ever

This week's sandwich roots were noble, and complimentary again towards the city of Buffalo. For the second week in a row I decided that I would pay homage to one of the best food cities in the country, but this time I chose to construct a Beef-on-weck sandwich... Much lesser-known to those outside of the city of Buffalo, but certainly not less important.

The beef-on-weck, to those unfamiliar, is a very simple sandwich that has German roots, but was ultimately invented in Buffalo. It's simplicity is in that it is roast beef, thinly sliced, placed on a kimmelweck roll... Horseradish is also acceptably thrown into this for those who feel adventurous. When made properly, this is a wonderful sandwich, both in it's taste and in it's unapologetic simplicity.

Something I had not counted on was the fact that this is almost primarily a Western New York delicacy (did you not read that Wikipedia article I linked?!?), and therefore when I purchased the kimmelweck rolls at my local Wegmans in Lanham, MD, I was disappointed in the very un-Wegmans like staleness of the rolls -- This was not a bread product that they normally sold a lot of. Determined not to let this get to me (and driven by the promise of giant sandwiches filled with meat), I decided to make the sandwich happen anyway. The following is a chronicle of the next 4 days of lunch.

Monday: Though fairly stale, the insides of the roll prove to be surprisingly fresh. The roast beef is very rare (perfect for this sandwich), and the week's 'Potential Lunch Enjoyment Outlook' (PLEO) is scoring off the charts.

Tuesday: The rolls are rock hard already... Very un-Wegman's like. I decide to take a 'wait-and-see' approach to the rest of the week's sandwiches. Still very good... I decide to soften the roll up in the microwave, and although it's mostly in that weird partially-hard-partially-soft-definitely-too-hot-in-that-microwavey-sort-of-way, I eat the sandwich anyway. Hard to knock this sandwich, even though it's less than ideal.

Wednesday: This is the day that I set the kitchen on fire. Attempting to soften the roll for a second day, I toss it in the microwave for a 30-second soften, and leave the kitchen to retrieve the camera (for those all-too-important blog screen shots)... I return to see the microwave on fire from the inside out... I have set the roll on fire. There is something primal to human beings when it comes to fire. There's nothing more exhilarating than creating fire where there was none before, and equally there's nothing more terrifying than accidentally creating fire when there was never intent to do so. That's why I shrieked like a little girl. In probably the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me at work (the setting of the fire, not the shriek... Although that didn't help), I created a lasting impression both in the minds of my co-workers, and more notably in the kitchen at CPI -- That shit smells terrible, and remains to this day.

Thursday-Friday: I bring regular bread. This is the part of the story that's not interesting.

So yea, rough week on the sandwich front. On a brighter note (followed quickly by another disappointing retrospective negative note), we have a 70 mile ride coming up after being unable to complete last week's ride because of a rainout. We've got 3 weeks left of training before the century ride in West Virginia... Pretty crazy that it's all happening this quick.

Buffalo Turkey: An All America Wrap

For this week's sandwich, I chose to pay homage to a place I would consider my second or third home, and that place is Buffalo, NY. Commonly known for many things (snowy weather, disastrous Super Bowl results in consecutive years), I think it's safe to say that the most well-known export out of the city of Buffalo is Buffalo Chicken. I decided to play off of this awesomely delicious food this week, and in order to keep it a bit healthy, I chose to replace the chicken with turkey, and to make it a wrap as opposed to a sandwich.

The wrap is surprisingly simple. I slap some oven roasted deli turkey meat (Courtesy of my local Wegman's), and top that with some crumbled bleu cheese, lettuce and tomato. On top of that I employ a generous lathering of Franks Buffalo Sauce, and wrap it up with the culinary dexterity of someone who has not only gone to Subway sandwich making school, but in fact someone who has graduated with honors from Subway sandwich making school.

The wrap ended up being mighty tasty. It takes a bit of time to construct, but I think the payoff is well worth it. I'm surprised as to how filling it is, considering that a bulk of the fill-factor is veggies. I rarely bring this topic up in my blog, but I have to point out the fact that I chose one of the worst pairing side dishes to go with this sandwich this week. Although the pears are delicious and perfectly ripe, they don't work well with the buffalo turkey taste. The pears are very bland when tasted in unison with the buffalo taste, and it's been somewhat disappointing. Welcome to Dustin's new blog -- 'Telling you how fruit you've had a million times before in your life tastes'

All in all, this wrap was a success. I wouldn't consider it the best or worst I've ever had, but it's been enjoyable all week. I'm surprised it's taken me this long to get around to making a wrap (about a year and half of this blog, really), but I do think I hit it out of the park. I'm also glad I was able to refer to Buffalo as an 'All America City' in a clever title-themed way. Arbitrary Scoring Scale? I think it gets an 8.5/10.

This weekend? JEOPARDY! And then a 70 mile ride. Things are heating up.

When I Stop Blogging...

A lot of information comes out all at once -- Envision a sandwich blog version of a pinched hose... I'm sure this is a common exercise for most.

Last week's sandwich was a re-run. This was partially because there were fewer days in the sandwich-eating week (Good Friday was off for us), but also because the egg salad sandwich was a success the week before, and I was interested to see if I could improve on it (I did! -- Less soupy, more eggy, and overall better proportions of ingredients). Also, I was lazy and totally did not want to come up with a new sandwich idea last week.

This week's sandwich is a PBJ. I'm losing my sandwich mojo -- What with coming back from Buffalo (woo Buffalo!) on Monday and another bout of laziness, I have officially made this sandwich hiatus a two week event. While this is a fairly disappointing thing for me, I hope to make it up over the next few weeks when both training and sandwich making should be kicking into high gear.

Speaking of training, much in the same vein as the sandwich-making, it has been as far from consistent as it really could be. Unfortunately we've had up and down weather, making commuting to and from work difficult to be consistent on. I'm still holding strong at around 50%, which I guess in early April isn't a terrible percentage.

Two weeks ago Ben, Erin and I embarked on a 50 mile ride on some familiar bike paths. Unfortunately the bike gods (bike path gods?) chose to negatively effect the ride and wrecked havoc on Erin's tires. She got out on her own the next day, but she was missed on the ride. In true 'one-persons-shitty-day-is-another-persons-best-day' style, I happened to feel better than I believe I'd ever felt on a long ride. Although I ended up exhausted after a 'mere' 50 miles, I felt fresh and solid the entire ride. If I feel that way for the century ride, than I will feel sorry for every bike riding record ever set.

Last weekend, as previously noted, I went to Buffalo with my wonderful wife for Easter. I went all-in on getting a really good ride in while there. I went and bought a bike rack at REI. I constructed a really gnarly ride along the Riverwalk. I was ready... Unfortunately for me, Buffalo at 6 AM in early April is, for lack of a better phrase, balls-fucking cold. Because of time restraints (Oh no, I had to go to Duff's... Poor me...), I wasn't able to get out there at any other time. So yea, I missed out on some serious biking, but I can't say I feel regretful about it.