Author: Catherine Newman
Book: Sandwich
Difficulty rating: Green Eggs and Ham
Deliciousness rating: Ardent Admiration

But first: the epic making of sandwiches! I complain about this part of my vacation life, but I love it, and everybody knows this. I look for my favorite bowl— the one with the Scandinavian mushrooms printed around its enamel sides— and mix three cans of tuna with half a jar of mayo, heaps of celery, pickled pepperoncini peppers, and a splash of juice from the pepper jar. Jamie, Nick, and I all want fresh dill and cucumbers in our sandwiches. Nick also wants honey mustard, lettuce, basil, and tomatoes, even though I judge him about the chaotic too-muchness of it. Willa, a clam-eating vegetarian, wants a mozzarella and roasted pepper sandwich, which Maya wants too-though she’s not totally sure if she’ll eat it. Willa wants fresh basil on hers and a drizzle of balsamic; Maya wants only cucumbers. I complain joyfully about how particular everyone is, wrap everything in foil, stick it all in the cooler, add a package of Vienna Fingers cookies, a big bag of cherries, dill-pickle potato chips, a half-dozen cans of lemon-lime seltzer, a big mason jar full of water with lemon slices in it, and a couple cans of beer.

Sandwich is a book that I gobbled up in one big gulp on a plane ride and then couldn’t stop thinking about because of this picnic scene! I immediately texted Miko a screenshot of the quote, saying “I want to make this meal and take it to the beach this summer” (it was April at the time which can be a bit chilly at the beach) and we eventually planned it for a gorgeous August Saturday at Coronado Beach. We brought Miko’s wife Laura, and our friends Alli and Sarah and their kids Oliver and Jasper.

Since everyone is very particular about their sandwiches both in the book and in real life, we decided to just mix tuna and mayo and let each person decide what other ingredients they wanted. We even borrowed a bowl with mushrooms on it from our friend Glennis!

Miko wrote down some of the sandwich combinations:

• Jenne: tuna with celery and pepperoncini (peppers and juice), dill and basil, tomatoes and cucumbers, honey mustard on half, potato chips in the sandwich, granulated shallot powder at the end.
• Laura: tuna with pepperoncini juice and pepperoncini, roasted red pepper, a teeny bit of honey mustard, dill, cucumbers, basil, and potato chips. Plus a separate sandwich of mozzarella and tomato, basil, balsamic, shallot powder, and cucumber.
• Miko: tuna, dill, cucumber, tomato, pepperoncini juice only, no peppers.
• Alli: tuna, pepperoncini, roasted red peppers, cucumbers, mozzarella.
• Oliver: just four slices of mozzarella, no bread (Oliver is 4 and seems to subsist entirely on proteins and chocolate)

We also brought cherries, grapes (mentioned later in the scene), root beer and ginger beer (no alcohol allowed at this beach), lemon-lime seltzer, ice water with lemon slices, Vienna Fingers cookies, and a vast amount of potato chips.

Did it measure up?
Yes! We were skeptical about using pepperoncini juice in tuna salad, but we are entirely converted now. And despite our rather snooty attitude about Vienna Fingers (sounded boring and overly processed) they turned out to be exactly the right cookie for the occasion. From the vantage point of January, I can’t wait to have this picnic again 😭