Look, I don’t make this stuff up, I just observe, snicker and report
back. This week’s New Yorker asks,
apparently in all seriousness, “Has
there ever been a better time to eat a sandwich?” It’s in the Table for Two column, and it’s
the opening line of a review of two Brooklyn establishments; Glady’s in
Franklin Avenue, and the Court Street Grocers Hero Shop in Sullivan Street.
The hero place sounds just fine and that’s their nicely low-tech sign
above, but Glady’s sounds like one helluva
place. The review recommends you start
with a “custom cocktail” (aren’t all cocktails custom?) such as the Greenwich
Sour: “flush with bourbon, lemon, Cointreau and Lumbrusco” (yep, really – flush
indeed), followed by a bowl of pickled beet, radish, fennel, egg, and lamb
pastrami with peach mostarda; then – and only then - it’s time for the sandwich. They recommend the Brocc’Obama: grilled broccoli
and ricotta, with collard greens and mustard vinaigrette on “squishy flauta
bread.” Has there ever been a better
time to cry “enough already”?
Here’s a picture from the Glady’s website; it shows a sandwich but they
don’t say what’s in it.
Such high fallutin jiggery-pokery reminds me of one of my favorite
sandwich scenes. It comes from The Odd Couple, the movie version with
Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau, rather than the TV series, and of course it was
a stage play before that.
Oscar Madison (Matthau) is playing poker
with his buddies, and Neil Simon’s dialogue runs like this:
Oscar: I'm
in for a quarter.
Murray:
Aren't you going to look at your cards first?
Oscar: What
for? I'm gonna bluff anyway. Who gets a Pepsi?
Murray: I get
a Pepsi.
Oscar: My
friend Murray the policeman gets a warm Pepsi.
Roy: You
still didn't fix the refrigerator. It's been two weeks now - no wonder it
stinks in here.
Oscar:
Temper, temper. If I wanted nagging, I'd go back with my wife. I'm out. Who
wants food?
Murray: What
do you got?
Oscar: I
got, uh, brown sandwiches and, uh, green sandwiches. Which one do you want?
Murray:
What's the green?
Oscar: It's
either very new cheese or very old meat.
Murray: I'll
take the brown.
[Oscar hands Murray a sandwich which Murray
starts wolfing down]
Roy: Are
you crazy? You're not going to eat that, are you?
Murray: I'm
hungry!
Roy: His
refrigerator has been out of order for two weeks now. I saw milk standing in
there that wasn't even in the bottle!
Oscar: What
are you, some kind of health nut? Eat, Murray, eat!
Ah, they don’t make sandwiches like that anymore. Although actually I suspect that despite all the
gentrification, there are places in Brooklyn where they still do.
