I Made a Giant Sandwich to Celebrate Pre-Picnic Season
Plus this week's Xylophone Break about new novelty ice creams, since they're coming out regardless of weather forecasts.
I think we all have to admit that there was a time when Chrissy Teigen was everyone’s favorite online personality. She was certainly one of mine. Before everyone and their favorite fast food chain was snarky and ““relatable”” online, Chrissy really provided something. She’s beautiful, she’s married to a talented musician, she gave us a glimpse into the other charming characters in her household (her MOM), and she seemed to really care about food. I preordered BOTH of her cookbooks released in 2016 and then 2018. When I paged through her second book, Cravings: Hungry For More, I immediately bookmarked the page with the picture of a giant bread loaf hollowed out and layered with sandwich ingredients. I love a sandwich, and the appeal of a giant sharable one proved to be compelling even through the years.
In 2021, some incredibly unsavory information came to light about Chrissy Teigen, which dulled her shine for me. Ultimately I paid less attention to Chrissy, but didn’t get rid of her books. When I dusted them off recently, I remembered the giant sandwich.
It was hot last week. It went from fifty to eighty degrees and I was happy for everyone thriving. But I like to be a little bit cold. I want to be cozy. I become tired and particularly unproductive when heated too thoroughly. But the world always turns. And I decided I would incentivize myself to enjoy the warmer weather with some ultimate picnic food. The time for the giant sandwich had arrived.
I went to Whole Foods because one of my toxic traits is I think everything I buy at Whole Foods is better quality and better for me than anything I buy at other grocery stores. I collected the sourdough loaf, basil, garlic, roasted red peppers, marinated artichoke hearts, pepperoncini, mayo, cheese, salami, and I opted to utilize ham instead of mortadella because mortadella doesn’t look good to me and a picky eater still lives deep within me.
Next, I allotted time to roast the garlic for the mayo. I made the mistake of overcooking some of the bulbs to a firmer exterior which essentially turned them to rocks the second they were removed from the heat. Whoops. They cooled quickly and I mashed them, then added the salt, pepper, mayo, and Dijon mustard. It smelled heavenly. I aspire to be someone that makes a lot of condiments from scratch-ish so I was like I’M DOING IT.
When the time arrived to make the sandwich, I realized I should have given more thought to the excavation of the interior of the loaf. With relative ease, I cut the “top” of the sandwich off to start the hollowing. In the cookbook, Chrissy explicitly told me to use my hand to scoop out the bread to make way for the ingredients. But once I started clawing at the insides of the loaf, I felt like an actual raccoon. Normally, this type of thing wouldn’t faze me, but I viewed this sandwich as a luxury item! It seemed that no rodents should be present in its assembly!
And honestly luckily I received that reality check, because swiping the garlic mayo on every inch of the bowl, assembling a layer of cheese, harvesting roasted red peppers from their jar, wiping my hands, pulling salami from its container, wiping my hands, first using a fork but then fully just delving into the jar for marinated artichokes and separating the pieces with my fingers, washing the oil from my hands, pulling pepperoncini slices from another jar, salting, and peppering, swiping ham from its bag, and laying basil leaves before starting again was humbling, too. Initially, I tried to create seamless layers, dreaming of a flawless cross-section once cut. But when the bowl was nearly full, I had the time of my life tossing in ingredients in whatever order. As Chrissy instructed, I packed down the layers as I went along. Apparently I’ve been training for this in all the years I’ve been doing everything to avoid taking out the trash for as long as possible.
Once completed, I slathered the remaining mayo on the inside of the top of the loaf, slid the entire thing back into the plastic bag in which I purchased the bread, and stuck it in the fridge. The recipe called for it to be wrapped in plastic wrap and left to sit out for two hours. But I don’t think Chrissy was considering the fact that my house was seventy eight degrees at the time of completion, so into the cool it went.
Hours later, I sliced the loaf into quarters like the picture in the book suggested and shared it with my spouse. “10 out of 10,” he said without prompt. I was also impressed. The flavors were amazing. I usually depend heavily on a sandwich’s crispy vegetable toppings (lettuce, tomato, and onion feel mandatory), but even with only pickled vegetables and fresh basil, this was a delight. There were lots of clamoring flavors but I prefer the feeling that everyone is trying to get my attention.
Days after the sandwich was gone, I realized this would probably be just as good done up like a Subway party sub without the Subway bread smell and tragic Subway meats. So I secured a French bread loaf, sliced it into two halves, and partially hollowed out the top and the bottom. I made more garlic mayo, slathered both sides, and added all the same toppings. This time I laid out all the veggies for quicker assembly (probably should have figured that out after one layer of the first ‘wich). The French bread loaf was loads easier to build and arguably more delightful in consumption than the sourdough. But in a bread BOWL, plentiful compacted layers are easier to accomplish. I missed squishing everything together, demonstrating my strength.
Technically, I can’t make any promises. But I feel making this sandwich and enjoying it on a blanket in a park somewhere could suspend you above anything upsetting, at least for a while.
If you’re interested in the very specific recipe, message me and I’ll send you one cell phone photo of the page of Chrissy’s book. It feels disrespectful to just put it HERE. Or make another sandwich! Either way! Happy Pre-Picnic Season!
And don’t forget to check out this week’s Xylophone Break about early 2023 seasonal ice cream offerings. McDonald’s has a new McFlurry flavor, Talenti has new novelty bars, DQ has a new dipped cone flavoring, everyone is wrapping ice cream in Fruit Roll Ups, and I seemingly have plenty of time on my hands to try them all.
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