Sandwich

I woke up early this morning, and made sandwiches for everybody. They don’t wake up easily - too much iphone time at night maybe, so breakfast is usually on me. I fried the strips of tempeh golden brown and toasted the bread. Think layers. You have to plan when you make a sandwich. Lettuce is not a default. It’s there to keep the gushy stuff that leaks, off your bread so that you won’t get a soggy sandwich. A thin layer of mayo serves the same purpose… the primary layer upon which everything else rests. I cut up tomatoes, taking care to dice them so as to get around the inconvenient fact that no slices of tomato ever stack up on a piece of bread properly, there are always some overhangs and some gaps. Dicing the tomato fixes that problem. Then came avocado. You have to slice it and immediately spritz on lemon so it won’t go brown. I stood back and inspected my work. It would pass. I have quite a few man-wiches under my belt by now so sandwich-making is something I am good at. 

When it was all stacked up, I thought to serve it that way, open-faced. All the women in my family cry about bread, like eating it is a sin. They either forego it altogether, or they go for open-faced. Still, it’s a pity. All that stacking for naught. I knew as soon as they lifted it up and took a bite, the whole thing would fall apart. You would end up needing a fork and spoon to dine. And I thought about the first guy who ever made a sandwich. No doubt he was trying to cut corners and combine food groups in a convenient and slick way that was portable and not too messy. Perhaps for the road. Maybe he was an medieval guy who had a busy schedule set out for his day. Maybe he had to eat his breakfast on the way to work, on a bumpy cart that hits every stone in the road.  That top piece of bread is the clincher. It makes all the difference. Say what you will about bread, the real reason you have a sandwich, is that two pieces of humble bread that are more than just filler. They hold everything else together so that you can enjoy what is inside to the maximum.

There can be a tendency to talk down those two pieces of bread. They are ill-considered, obsolete and no longer necessary, especially amongst the anti-bread crowd. Still, I thought about the realities of family life. Me and my wife, we are the two pieces of bread, perhaps standing aside a bit, enriched by the varieties of filler that flow through a household. Raise up some children and you will know what I am talking about. Kids are fun and they are always interesting, and it is in your best interests as a parent to sit back and watch them grow up, to stand aside somewhat and act as the somewhat loose holder of all this life. 

If you grip too tightly you will squish the ingredients. If you don’t grip tight enough, some pieces may fall out and be lost. Truly the art of the sandwich is something that is tricky, and a life skill. They call us the sandwich generation sometimes. We are the ones that occasionally end up as buffer for a few generations, standing back and making sure everyone is OK. I asked my wife about this, for the stints she did caring for her mom. She said it was not a sacrifice. She would gladly do it again. Her response made me happy because it was an indication of priorities in order. At a certain point, it’s OK to be the piece of bread, filler, not seeming to have much purpose, simply being there holding that whole big sandwich together. It always takes two pieces. One is never enough. There is something nature covered off there that is beautiful, and I think people subconsciously nod to this notion every time they lift a sandwich in thanks and in praise of the necessary teamwork in life that is humble, but fulfilling.