Food Watch: 18 grilled-cheese sandwiches made all at once? That sounds like sorcery!

by Ken

Let's say you saw a tease like the one above. No, let's say you saw the tease above. Are you going to tell me you wouldn't click through? Come on, 18 grilled-cheese sandwiches made all at once! That's not worth a click?

Heck, you don't even have to like grilled-cheese sandwiches to want to see this trick performed. 18 at once? Once you've seen that, is there really anything left to see? Plus, say you have 17 people coming over in half an hour for lunch -- or a nice snack. You've got a couple of loaves of Wonder Bread and a jumbo pack of "American slices," but there's no way you can convert them into 18 sandwiches you can serve nice and hot, is there?

Is there?

Well, not as far as I know. Because by the time you've finished clicking on epicurious.com, this is what you wind up with:



And poor Anna Stockwell, through (probably) no fault of her own, is being booed and hissed before she has a chance to whip out her pair of sheet pans. Now if you had been promised six grilled-cheese sandwiches made at once, you probably wouldn't have gotten as keyed up, but you would probably have thought, "Heck, that's something, six grilled cheeses made at once." I'm not saying you wouldn't have proceeded to check out what's new in breast or penis enlargement, but you would probably have had it in mind to go back at some point and see just how those six grilled cheeses are made at once with a pair of sheet pans.

There's a lesson here for all of us in overpromising.


ANNA, YOU SEE, IS ENVISIONING A MUCH MORE
MODEST HOME INVASION THAN WE JUST WERE

"Sometimes," she says, "you just need a mountain of grilled-cheese sandwiches. And not because you're planning on eating all of them."

Let's say a bunch of hungry kids (or kids-at-heart) are coming over. Let's say there's a pot of tomato soup on the stove. You need to become a one-person grilled-cheese machine. How do you do it?

Maybe if you have a stovetop griddle or get two skillets going at once you can do four, but it starts to get a little tricky to make more than that, and I inevitably end up turning on the oven to keep finished sandwiches warm while I knock out another round on the stove, and quick little lunch of grilled cheese for six people turns into more of a project than I'd signed up for.

But there's an easier, faster way: Cut the stove out of the equation entirely.

What? you say. Cut the stove out of the equation entirely? No way! But you're interested again, right?

If you've managed to rise above the worst of the rancor left from the bait-and-switch that disappeared those other dozen sandwiches, and you still want to know how Anna proposes to pull off this admittedly more humdrum miracle of sexta-grilled-cheese fabrication, here's the secret:

CREATE A GIANT PANINI PRESS IN THE OVEN

The flat metal surface of a heavy-duty 13x18" rimmed baking sheet (or half-sheet pan) is a great conductor of heat, and my favorite tool for getting nice brown and crispy edges on roasted vegetables. So I knew I could get a nice crispy edge on my grilled cheese sandwiches on a rimmed baking sheet, but I wanted to get that griddle-seared crust on both sides of each sandwich without having to flip it. That's where a second rimmed baking sheet comes in—by stacking it on top of the grilled cheese sandwiches then putting the whole "sandwich" in the oven, you mimic the effect of a panini press, searing and crisping both sides of the sandwich at the same time.

Is it my imagination, or do these sandwiches look dry?

As you can perhaps tell, Anna is pretty excited about all this. And she's every bit as excited by her hard-won discoveries after churning out ovenfuls of grilled-cheese sandwiches. Probably you or I would have guessed straightaway that you're going to want to invert the bottom pan but not the top one -- so that you have, you know, a press. Anna gets there eventually, explaining, "Having the bottom sheet inverted and the top one right-side-up yielded the best and fastest melting, since hot air is able to get in on all sides without the rim in the way."

But there's still a problem!

I kept getting unevenly-browned tops and bottoms on my grilled cheeses. So I tried a trick I like to use when I want to get even crispier potatoes, and preheated just the top baking sheet, since the top was consistently less browned than the bottom. Bingo!

ANOTHER BREATHLESS GRILLED-CHEESE
DISCOVERY: MAYO KICKS BUTTER'S BUTT

"First off," we're told, "it's easier and faster to spread than butter (unless yours is completely softened), which makes a big difference when you're making six sandwiches at a time." And an even bigger difference if you thought you were going to be making 18 sandwiches. Of course you could start by working with softened butter. But there's another lesson afoot: "Even more importantly, the mayo grilled cheeses came out of the oven with gorgeously browned, delightfully savory, and shatteringly crisp surfaces. Sold."

"Shatteringly crisp surfaces"? Is this really what you and your five (or 17) guests are looking for?

Now you're probably wondering, "Gosh, Anna, what about the cheese? What kind(s) should I use?" And you'll be glad you asked, because she tested not just lots of cheeses but different kinds,

and the only thing my taste-testers and I could all agree on was that a blend of cheeses, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper on those cheeses, is always good. You can use just one kind of cheese if that's all you've got, but you'll get a richer, more complex flavor if you mix together two or three kinds.

We're encouraged in particular "to mix cheeses with different textures" -- for example, "a bit of Parm mixed in with softer meltier cheeses like mozzarella and Monterey Jack." This, you may be startled to learn, "adds deeper umami and saltiness." No, it's not the saltiness that'll surprise you, it's the "deeper umami." Okey-doke.

Or you might moosh some cream cheese, goat cheese, or crème fraîche with some harder cheeses, to get them to "bind together into a creamy filling." And if you want "plenty of melted-cheese strings when bitten into," then "you want a blend of grated mozzarella, cheddar, and Monterey Jack."

Now, for those other 12 sandwiches . . . .

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Sandwich Watch: End of an era -- the sandwich and deli worlds mourn as Philip Roth says almost 80 years' worth of sandwiches is enough

But skeptical sandwich observers ask, was it really his last?


Let the record show that this corned-beef job was not Philip Roth's last sandwich, which was reported by The Borowitz Report to have been a turkey with lettuce and tomato on whole wheat (condiments unspecified -- surely not dry?).

"Not only have I had my last sandwich, I have made my final public statement about sandwiches."

-- novelist and essayist Philip Roth, to a Dutch
interviewer, as reported by The Borowitz Report

by Ken

Well, we knew this day had to come. It was one thing when Philip Roth revealed that he was done with writing. Now, however, comes the real blow: The Borowitz Report reports that the great American writer has scarfed his last sandwich.

Already, though, some sandwich skeptics are less than certain, pointing to the obvious wiggle room contained in his own "final public statement about sandwiches," and noting as well that nothing stops the multi-honored American novelist and essayist, who turned 81 in March, from simply going back on his declaration.

Still, the general reaction was that this is indeed the end of an era.

May 20, 2014
PHILIP ROTH SAYS HE HAS HAD HIS LAST SANDWICH
Posted by ANDY BOROWITZ


NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—The novelist Philip Roth announced today that a sandwich he ate last week, a turkey one with lettuce and tomato on wheat, would be his last.

Roth’s retirement from sandwich eating, announced in an interview with a Dutch literary magazine, came as a surprise to the worlds of publishing and sandwiches.

In the interview, Roth attempted to soft-pedal the reasons behind his startling decision, saying only, “I had my first sandwich when I was three or four. That’s almost eighty years ago. That’s a lot of sandwiches.”

The response to Mr. Roth’s renunciation of sandwiches was skeptical, with some readers of the interview questioning whether the acclaimed novelist had not left the door open a crack to sandwiches in his future.

When asked by his Dutch interviewer if he had sworn off deli meats, Roth said, “I could see a situation at a buffet where they’d have those mini slices of rye bread, and I’d make an open-faced thingy with roast beef and maybe a pickle or whatnot. But that’s not the same thing as a sandwich.”

As if to quell any misunderstanding, on Tuesday afternoon Roth issued the following statement through his publisher: “Not only have I had my last sandwich, I have made my final public statement about sandwiches.”

TOMORROW: "HOW WRONG WE WERE," JONATHAN 
MIRSKY RECALLS, 25 YEARS AFTER TIANANMEN


NYRB caption: "General Secretary of the Communist Party Zhao Zhiyang (left) talking to protesters in Tiananmen Square with future premier Wen Jiabao behind him, May 19, 1989"

How wrong we were—foreign reporters (I was a correspondent for The Observer in those days), China-watchers abroad, and many Chinese themselves. . . . I wrote several opinion pieces for my paper . . . surer about Chinese affairs than I had ever been.

Can you figure out what Mirsky and all those other "foreign reporters, China-watchers abroad, and many Chinese themselves" were so sure and so wrong about?

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Does anyone care what the 11th Earl of Sandwich has to say about sandwiches? (Does anyone care what Paul Ryan has to say about economics?)

No, this isn't The Sandwich. It's just, you know,
"a" sandwich -- from Subway, actually.

The Eleventh Earl of Sandwich and his forty-year-old heir, Orlando William Montagu, entered the catering trade in 2001, establishing a chain of sandwich restaurants called Earl of Sandwich. Their partner is the guy who founded Planet Hollywood. They have outlets at the Downtown Disney Marketplace and in the Fort Drum Service Plaza, in Okeechobee, Florida. Later this year, they will open branches in New York, one in midtown and another on John Street. . . . [A]ccording to their literature, "we don't serve mere sandwiches. We serve The Sandwich."

-- the start of Lauren Collins's "Talk of the Town" report,
"On a Roll," in last week's (May 23) New Yorker

by Ken

Now of course it's always good to know that we New Yorkers are on the verge of catching up with what's chic in Okeechobee, and of course England, where the 11th Earl and his son the future 12th Earl (addressed as "Lando" by his father, as in "Paper napkins, Lando, please!") . . . well, as Lauren puts it in her report (which is not available free online, by the way):

The Montagus, like the "Bachelor" contestant Prince Lorenzo Borghese, are not shy about making new money from an old name. For around six dollars, a customer can obtain the Earl's Club, the Full Montagu, or the Original 1762: roast beef, Cheddar, and horseradish sauce.

"The other day, in London," Lauren explains, "a concerned American sandwich lover performed some reconnaissance." Now one doesn't like to think that The New Yorker actually paid her way to London to sample these gustatory delights. Was she maybe there on her own, and took advantage of this opportunity to clue New Yorkers and no doubt other Americans (where do you go on a trajectory that runs from Okeechobee through NYC?) that Something's Coming? Well, I suppose that's none of my business, except possibly when I have to write my next subscription-renewal check.

It was, as I'm sure we all recall, the 11th Earl's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather (I think I've got the right number of "great"s, but don't bet The Sandwich on it), the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who invented the sandwich. Lauren quotes the famous account by "the French traveler Jean-Pierre Grosley," from 1765, that attributed the invention to the earl's compulsive gambling, which rendered him unwilling to surrender more than one hand to even so important a function as nourishment, which he took in the form of "a bit of beef, between two slices of toasted bread, which he eat without quitting the game. This new dish grew highly in vogue, during my residence in London."

An alternative theory supported by 11th Earl biographer N.A.M. Rodger holds that "his subject's dedication to the Navy, politics, and the arts -- he was a big fan of madrigals --that led him to demand a meal that could be eaten at his desk."

No doubt you're waiting breathlessly to hear oracular pronouncements about sandwiches from, you know, the sort-of-source. Okey-dokey, can do.

Both father and son employ cooks, but they have strong opinions about sandwich construction, even if the construction of their sandwiches is often subcontracted. Eating lunch with them was like perusing knitwear with the descendants of the Earl of Cardigan, or sitting around with the Wellington family -- of which Orlando's wife is a member -- talking rubber boots.

And then comes the revelation that prompted me to bring the whole thing up. I think this really needs to be in boldface.

"I don't like everything poured onto a sandwich," the Earl said. "I like one or two things, but most people like a huge choice nowadays, so we have to accept that," he said, with the regretful air of a viceroy lamenting the fall of the Raj.

And along about here, tongue-in-cheek though the report clearly is, I found myself wondering, though wondering really isn't quite strong enough a term: Why the hell would anyone in his or her right mind give a damn what the 11th Earl of Sandwich thinks about sandwiches?

I mean, if you were doing a TV show about sandwiches, and you were filming random people's opinions about sandwiches, you might for laughs get around to the 11th Earl, in the way that you might for some reason get around to asking, say, Rep. Paul Ryan -- in much the same way that our Paul's views on economics, a subject about which he has even more dubious credentials (after all, it seems likely that he actually eats sandwiches), are for inexplicable reasons occasionally sought out by reporters with apparently nothing better to do with their time or media holes.

And just to be clear, questions about Lando's having endured "playground gibes about his ancestry" are out of bounds.

"He's not a Sandwich yet, so why would he?" the Earl interjected. "The title will not pass to him until I die. Not many foreigners can work it out."

Um, noted, Earl. Er, thanks. I mean, sorry. Whatever.

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