Late Night Dinner

It's a Monday night, just got out of work around 830. Traversed the 8 minute drive home, opened the door to the palatial estate, then the door to the fridge...What's for dinner?... At the store on Sundays I usually grab a pound of lunch meat and some cheese. This week it happened to be Virginia Ham, but as a reach for the standard complimentary sack of American, I noticed the leftovers from a block of smoked cheddar. Ham and smoked cheddar what could be better? (I assess 3 bonus points for the rhyme).....Keep reading...

I usually purchase some form of bagel at Kroger as well, I find their brand is not only cheaper, but the texture is softer, and yet more complex, a little more to my liking. I often grab the Everything variety, because it is good for just about that. With a "fresh" half dozen in hand my belly and my brain began immediate and laborious efforts to hatch and amazing plan for gastro gratification.

My little brother currently attends Miami University, and when I am in town for a night of debauchery we are always sure to stop at the Bagel & Deli located uptown. While their website isn't much to behold, their soft, steamy satisfying bagel sandwiches certainly are. I find that satisfaction at Bagel & Deli is most easily achieved by telling one of the friendly "bagelwich artists" what sort of protein you would like and letting their imagination take over. Otherwise you could be there for hours just contemplating the menu. All their works are an excellent beginning to any plan that involves mitigating the effects of tomorrow's hangover.... Now, totally immersed in my Jack Skelington-esque Eureka! moment, it was time to cook. First I built my sandwich:

• One Everything bagel
• Both sides slathered in mayonnaise
• Four slices of smoked cheddar
• Four slices of Virginia Ham
• Two Slices of tomato
• Some shredded romaine
• My wife likes to throw a couple crunchy potato chips in the middle (something they do at Bagel & Deli, but an addition based on personal preference)
  

Build your bagel with cheese closest to the bagel for maximum adhesion. Condiments and veg in the middle. Now to replicate the magical cooking process that makes normal bagels into delectable morsels of steamy goodness:

• Fill your dutch oven with about 1/4" of water
• Set over high heat
• Place you colander into the oven make sure it hovers above the water line
• Wrap your sandwich in foil and place into colander
• Put lid on pot (it won't be a perfect fit but it will be enough to achieve the desired result)
• Steam sandwich for about 10 mins
  

The resulting dish is an amalgam of smokey ham, melty cheddar, palate-cleansing veggies and the bagel oy vey the bagel. The sauna from which you just extracted your creation transformed the bagel into a hot, chewy, intensely flavorful ring of starch. You have successfully recreated the power of the bagel steamer thingy in your own house. Wield this power responsibly.

My First Post

Did you see what I did there? Huh, Huh, did ya? The title of this blog....yeah I know it's pretty creative, but beyond that it seems appropriate. For one I love to eat food and one of the greatest things about food is its a vehicle for salt. But secondly you should take the opinions I share here as just that. Patronize the restaurants I sample, make drastic changes to the recipes I publish and always clean your plate (makes my grandma happy). You should always eat for yourself, cook for others, and read this blog often for me. Thanks in advance.

A little more on sodium chloride. Salt has been many things, from flavor to currency but, most of all... its freakin' awesome. Have you ever licked the salt off the top of a perfectly hexagonal Skyline oyster cracker and then tossed it back in the bowl? Or practically sucked the husk off a "hot salty nut" during a sweltering summer evening watching Joey Votto and the Cincinnati Reds dismantle the Cardinals at GABP. Or better yet heavily moistened your index finger with a dollop of saliva and then plunged it into the bottom of a pretzel bag creating a sort of Saltsicle best followed by a gulp of frosty Coke?

I claim to be some sort of computer techie, at least that's how my occupation is described at my employer. That being said this blog will be my first attempt to express myself in a digital manner. I have no personal website, no youtube account (yet), and I don't tweet. So I guess I'm kind of old school for a 27 year old.

Thanks to my cousin Patrick Hildebrandt (phildebrandt.com) for encouraging me to do this. Up to this point I have used my facebook page to chronicle a few of my culinary adventures and photograph several of my creations. But this blog will be full on dedicated to the concoction and consumption of food.