Your Childhood is Calling

Jim and I really have very traditional roles around the house.  I’m not joking when I say I call him when he’s had a long day to ask which cocktail I can make him before he gets home.  And when he gets home I greet him with his drink and, yes, I am usually wearing an apron.  I clean the house.  He does the yard work. I pack lunches.  He takes out the trash.  We both cook.

Continuing our tradition of taking it straight back to the 1950s our road trips involve stopping at rest stops.  This started as a 'we'reself-employedandthisrecessioniskillingushowtomakeanickelscream' tactic. But it has become something Jim truly enjoys, for the break and the quaintness.  We pull over, get the cooler out of the trunk and while the kids are blowing off some steam we set up lunch at the picnic tables.  To make it even more Mayberry I wrap the sandwiches in wax paper, Jim loves that gesture.  I don’t know why, but I’ll keep doing it.  Our picnics usually consist of egg salad sandwiches, crab chips and cookies for everyone but me.  It’s always an egg salad sandwich.  I poll everyone the night before, I offer alternatives, none are accepted. 

Before I started to write this blog I had no idea I felt so strongly about egg salad.  But it turns out I have strong convictions on the matter.  Much like our kids, it was my favorite sandwich to find in my lunchbox.  And much like our kids, I didn’t care if it smelled like a toot, it tasted like perfection.  I remember one time some mean little girl at school teased me about it in the truly evicerating way that only little kids can.  She shamed me by telling me how awful it smelled and how gross it was; how could I eat that?  Obviously I would be booger eating level gross and a playground leper if I ate it, duh.  Now, I’m extremely sensitive, and I was certainly even more so as a kid.  I looked at my sandwich, I really wanted to eat it.  But this 8 year old future hen-pecker  continuing her rant stood between me and lunchbox (Happy Days lunchbox to be exact) bliss.  Luckily someone stood up for me, I wish I could remember who, telling little miss maladjusted third grader to shove it, therefore making it socially acceptable for me to go back to enjoying my lunch.  

This particular egg salad sandwich was made by my main care giver, Ms. Mooney.  Ms. Mooney was in her 70s, a former nurse and fairly strict.  She lived across the street from me in a senior citizen apartment building.  She made my lunches (and my dinners) and she made the world’s best egg salad.  Now, I’ve screwed around in the past putting different things in my egg salad like Old Bay, dill or celery but the reality is I am a purist and I like my egg salad like Ms. Mooney used to make it for me.  It should simply be: eggs, mayo, mustard, salt and pepper mashed up with a fork to a nice chunky consistency.  I also feel adamant that egg salad should be served on white bread with crispy lettuce and ripe tomato, no onion, no pickle.  And I feel very strongly about this.  Another little trick I use when assembling any type ‘salad’ sandwich is to spread the salad, in this case the egg salad, on both pieces of bread, place the lettuce and tomato in the center, this way the egg salad acts like glue firmly holding the vegetables in place.  

Egg salad feels as retro your grandparents living room.  Why is that?  I don't know, but when I eat it I can taste the 1940s.  So that’s right, I’m giving you a sandwich recipe.  But haven’t you missed it?  

Egg Salad - Serves 2

5 extra large eggs

5 tablespoons of mayonnaise

5 teaspoons of Dijon mustard

1/8 teaspoon of sea salt

freshly ground pepper

Place the eggs in a pot and fill with water until they are covered by an inch.  Heat the eggs to a boil.  Boil for 1 minute.  Then turn off the heat and leave the eggs in the hot water, covered for 13 minutes.  Remove and plunge the eggs in to an ice bath for 5 minutes.  Peel the eggs.  Place them in a bowl with the remaining ingredients and using a dinner fork, mash and mix to a chunky consistency.  Serve on white bread with lettuce and tomato.  

The Daydream

When we couldn’t sleep or felt totally wronged by the college cafeteria, my college roommate, Val, and I would describe favorite dishes from favorite restaurants to each other.  Sounds a little torturous, I know, especially after we probably had some Sysco canned green beans for dinner.  But it always did the trick, Val and I would drift off with visions of crepes and sushi all through our heads.

Val grew up in Brookline and had another outpost in the West Village at her Dad’s house.  She had also spent a summer in Aix.  She had a delicious food list.  Mine wasn’t too bad either.  Baltimoreans don’t be so surprised. No other place has our crab cakes, steamed crabs, Tio Pepe’s pine nut roll, Mary Sue easter eggs, Italian pastry shops on Bel Air road, our cheesy Baltimore version of Little Italy, soft shelled crab sandwiches, mussels, Berger cookies, crab chips, the treasures inside Cross Street and Lexington Markets, shall I continue?  All of these items are unique to Baltimore.  Sure you can get a crab cake anywhere, but it probably doesn’t taste remotely as good as the ones in Baltimore.  And while you also might be able to ferret out a soft shelled crab I bet it’s in a restaurant with a white table cloth not on a piece of white bread at a diner in Remington for $5. And if you live in Baltimore I suspect you tend to take all of this for granted.  I did and now I spend my time trying to recreate many of these items.

One other Baltimore tradition is the shrimp salad sandwich.  Shrimp salad is always served at bridal showers, with a side of croissants from Costco.  But more traditionally it is served on white bread with lettuce and tomato.  Eddie’s of Roland Park is the bench mark for shrimp salad sandwiches.  Eddie’s is the bench mark for a lot of things, I don’t know any other grocery store where you can have a grown man follow you around the store and place items in your cart, because selecting groceries is that exhausting?  Their deli is amazing and run like science lab, exacting, precise and very, very serious.  And if they don’t actually wear lab coats they wear something extremely similar.  Whenever I visit Baltimore I make a point to get a shrimp salad sandwich from Eddie’s.  I daydream about this sandwich.

Like crab cakes, everyone in Baltimore has a shrimp salad recipe.  I have tried to make mine as much like Eddie’s as possible.  They manage to keep their shrimp whole, I find they stay on the bread better if cut in half lengthwise.  You can guarantee after all this talk I am having this sandwich for lunch today.

Shrimp Salad for Two

3/4 lb. shrimp (30-40 count shrimp)

1/4 cup mayonnaise

4 teaspoons diced celery

1 tablespoon green onion, green part only sliced thinly

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon Old Bay, or your preferred Chesapeake Bay seasoning

1/8 teaspoon dried parsley

1 tiny pinch celery seed

salt and pepper

Heat 1-2 cups of water to a boil over a steamer basket, add the shrimp and steam until just cooked, about 4 minutes.  Cool on ice.  When the shrimp are cool, peel and devein them, then slice (or not) them lengthwise.  Combine the shrimp and the remaining ingredients and chill for 1 or up to 24 hours.