Five Talkin’, Pt. 2: Grub, Bub

There’s no denying it any longer: my inbox has been overflowing with requests for a second round of “Five Talkin’,” the feature that chronicles my top five favorites within specific categories—last time detailed both books and pornstars, among others/crazy that The Swallows was mentioned in both lists, huh?—because The Readership can’t get enough of my self-obsessed opinions chronicling frivolities. Josephine Der Kooligan of The Hague writes: “Since you’re a big fan of Stephen Colbert’s questionert [it rhymes, I promise], how about telling us what your favorite sandwiches are.”

Croissaren’t you glad to see people at The Hague take time for the serious stuff? Well, Jo, it’s a fine question coming from someone who probably delights in mashed kale and twice boiled potato skin pudding while actively awaiting the sentencing of war criminals. Death row sandwich? Crunchy peanut butter and jelly with hash brownies as the bread. If I’m going out on my terms, it’s worth the simultaneous hilarity, paranoia, and intense pants poopery. The five I’d prefer to eat in the interim…

Sandwiches
The Bernice Cheeseburger (order its namesake platter at Shady Glen in Manchester, Connecticut)
You don’t get to request how it’s cooked—well-done is the One True Way—but it’s served with four slices of the restaurant’s own cheese that’re collectively fried on a griddle to resemble Cheez-Its in taste (mostly) and texture (a smidge more than a bit). Topping options: tomato puddin’, mustard, relish, and/or minced raw white onions; I go for a relishstard mix. This cheeseburger tastes like nostalgia, like Don Draper sucking back a highball on the rocks, like one of the weird green-attired elvish creatures on the restaurant’s walls, like my father’s beard, like ‘50s pop songs playing from a turquoise-colored Cadillac convertible, like my father’s Camel Lights-stained hands and breath, like biting into a summer picnic paper plate with a ballgame on the radio and your grandparents dancing together slowly—both with perfectly-in-place era-specific haircuts—on a deck beside a swimming pool full of delightedly screaming relatives who are splashing one another as fireworks are being prepped and will cascade through a breezeless night sky as cans of domestic beer are consumed to celebrate a sporadic dream-come-true idyll, like the smell of hot blacktop, and like the best sandwich I’ve ever had each time I order and slowly savor it. If your mileage varies, enjoy your free refills of soggy-ass, cold-as-Green Bay-in-February steak fries at Red Robin, ya piece’uh shit. 

Tuna melt (best savored at Palace Diner in Biddeford, Maine)
Sitting in this fifteen-person ancient diner car on the coastline outside Portland convinced me that tuna melts, my go-to “easy to make in a pinch” sandwich, deserved to be treated like an art form. The Palace’s was named among America’s best sandwiches by one of cuisinedom’s most respected periodicals for its challah bread, mix of flavor (dill, lemon juice, celery salt, chef sweat), and ratio of bread to ingredients (including pickles and iceberg lettuce, best known as my favorite and least favorite sex toys in the bedroom/see “Five Talkin’, Pt. 4: Electric Whore to S[c]ore”). It has it all: crunch, chew, delicious, canned tuna, and comparisons to the smell of your high school best friend’s oldest sister’s bathing suit hanging in the bathroom while you brushed your teeth before bed at a sleepover. You’ll fend off conjuring thoughts of his middle sister to use as a means to douse your pants tightness given the Uber Eats or good old-fashioned diner car take-out options available to avoid this Covid Containment Cluster (CCC presented by CDC). Previous sentence, in summary: Get hard, stay hard. Eat a tuna melt. 

Cuban
No specific bites to spotlight; it’s just that the occasional craving of pork, ham, cheese, pickles, and Swiss on panini bread makes my mouth water. I’m expecting a work trip to take me to Miami next month and high on my to-do list is eating two things: a shrimp burrito and a Cuban made by a Cuban in a cabana with a Cobb salad. Yes, fuck me is right. This sandwich might compete with my top choice if not for my salt aversion, but certain combos mandate exceptions. Oddly, this feels like a sandwich that should always be consumed with a bottled beverage, fourteen napkins (I wipe my fingers with care that I admittedly sometimes eschew when my asshole’s present/J.K. Scott), an eye patch, and a half-smoked cigarillo tucked behind your right ear. No, I am not currently watching a Clint Eastwood western on TNT! Also: It should never be made with pulled pork (nor pushed pork). 

Bánh mì (vegetarian options accepted/encouraged)
This is the most refreshing sandwich that comes to mind—needs to be roasted pork, ham, or tofu for the protein (not chicken)—by letting carrots, cukes, and cilantro co-star with the slaughtercondo (the appropriate term if vegetarian & co. options equal the original) centerpiece. Best one ever was consumed at a streetside café table in Brooklyn, N.Y., with the sun beaming, friendly people chowing nearby, and the hypercharged energy of an evening’s pending engagement with Twenty One Pilots making everything at least ten times more satisfying than it otherwise would have been on a normal day. Don’t ask me why but it feels right to eat this sandwich with a dipping sauce (soy, fish, sesame, gyoza, I dunno—whatever you like). Bánh mì literally means bread, a reminder to criticize anyone who believes a cheese sandwich belongs on a list like this. Grilled cheese? Of course. Plain cheese on white bread? Cut the shit, ya lazy pussy.

Eggplant parmigiana (pretty much any good guinea joint but in this moment, I’d take one prepared by the big-portion-serving redheaded kid at Frigo’s in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts)
Peppers and onions are up to the eater, but the more layers of cheesy aubergine the better. Throw a few basil leaves in there too. (“And throw a little ricott’ while yuhs at it, paisan!”) Finally, give it the ole tragaducce. [Editor’s Note: that’s not a real thing.] My mother, a vegan, once encouraged me to order a grinder loaded with meat instead of eggplant parm due to my dong-adjacent dependency. The deceivers at Britannica wouldn’t say it, so I will: Nero is rumored to have eaten a sixteen-inch eggplant parm sandwich prior to fiddling, defying the age-old belief that it’s impossible to play virtuosic violin solos on a full stomach. He added pepperoncinis to his sub, proof positive that he was indeed a psychopath. Due to a self-imposed rule, there’s no revising this specific paragraph, an imposition more regrettable than sharing my composition of this entire post as a Federico Fellini-esque indulgently unedited TikTok deep cut (AHF’s Parma).

Well, that was fun, huh? *blows air at forehead and crosses eyes*  

Ulysses Lincoln Coleman IV of Nampa, Idaho, writes: “Adam, I’m aware you quit consuming alcohol, but still, I must know: what beers did you most enjoy drinking during your liver’s halcyon days?”

ULC the Fourth?! Well, that moniker’s perhaps more interesting than my forthcoming list, sir! Since the only days I’m ever in the mood for a, as they say in the elbow bending industry, cold one, is when it’s hot and sunny, this sweltering New England week provides the right backdrop as saliva forms in my mouth at the prospect of putting down any of the following suds.  

Beers
Heineken (can only)
This beer may taste “skunked” in a bottle, but a can of Holland’s signature lager is probably the first beer I want to try when my inevitable late forties wagon-falling bender takes shape. Little Baby Baseball Blebbz—aka the nickname Sue gave me based on a photo of me as a seven-year-old dressed in an Oakland A’s uniform—would be proud of this answer because I used to enjoy anything green in color (or wrapped in green/see: Oakland A’s). True heads know that when buying a six-pack, you always want to grab an extra tall boy in case you hit a point in the night where you consider returning to the lick her store but must debate how buzzed you are prior to leaving; my choice for the thirty-something ouncer in reserve was inevitably a Heinecan. “So, you’re saying that Heineken is delicious only once you’re fucked up?” Not at all, hypothetically difficult reader, but my desire to exit this review is stronger than continuing to argue with my imposter conscience. In short: You are not convinced Heinecan is good, but I’ll never be convinced my cold take is anything short of brilliant. *plays Maxine Nightingale’s “Right Back Where We Started From,” a problematic needle drop because The Ghost of My Former Drunken Self now thinks Wife Swap is rebooting on ABC* 

KBS
Founders, a Michigan-based brewery, releases this once per year in four-packs that are roughly thirty bucks. How can a bourbon barrel-aged chocolate coffee stout with notes of vanilla, A-flat, cocoa, C-sharp, charred oak, and D minor be worth seven dollars per glass? It’s a fine question—thank you, Self—but as someone who’s grown to enjoy a cuppa black coffee with every meal, this was a perfect brew(cross country)ski to accompany a slab of seitan, poached broccolini, cauliflower rice, and a compost heap salad. It’s impossible to drink this one quickly; pretending I was too classy to do anything but sip this robust malter from a hand-engraved stein justified wearing an oversized monocle (highly irritating choice, admittedly) from the time I cracked the top off until the last pitch-black drop exited my SLUT drinking glass (Salt Lake, UTah, natch). They also brew an annual CBS, or Canadian Breakfast Stout, which has a dash of maple syrup in its flavour profile/either option earns top stout selection although it’s prudent to refer to the latter as the Tiffany Beer. 

Radeberger (in a pilsner glass at your nearestby German haus)
Despite seeing parts of countless Two and a Half Men episodes while prepping or cooking food in the kitchen—c’mon, Casting Director, quit making my erection knock pots off the stove!—I had no idea that this is Charlie Harper’s favorite beer. That’s all the proof you need that if you’ve got a taste for this golden delight, you probably know a thing or two about a phenomenal rack as well. Counterpoint: It’s also Vladimir Putin’s favorite beer, and truth be told, when it comes to him and Charlie Sheen, you’re guess is good as mine as it concerns who’s currently doing the most WINNING. *close the fucking tab now, for the love!* Oh right, the beer: glue your empties onto the Ukrainian flag in your yard to really stick it to the evildoers, my man (bun). 

Pliny the Elder (on tap at Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, California)
Took a trip to San FranCisco—“Tomorrow starts here”—and following a detour to the Marin Headlands, my buddy Rick and I visited Russian River’s brewery, which surprisingly sits in a strip mall and has a façade suggesting it might be a bowling alley. The IPA craze has long been outta hand, many praised India-Pakistan Ales often tasting the same (and three being the caloric equivalent of drinking a loaf of bread), but this one on tap remains a high point. Sure, I’d had three Charlie Harpers before the ride north, but your buzzed bud can still boast on this brew’s behalf. Pro tip: Grab a growler and head to Salsalito Taco Shop for a delectable Mexican meal, prime views of Richardson Bay, and if you listen closely, echoes of syllables Rick screamed in my face for no reason after I’d already agreed that the bean dip was worth the endless weaving in and out of the HOV lane. Beer nerd aside: When he began home-brewing in the mid-‘00s, my best bud used to call for tips to replicate RR’s recipes, and on more than one occasion the owner, Vinnie Cilurzo, happily offered advice to make an east coast Pliny equivalent. All the proof you need that this place is the feline’s bathrobe. Honorable west coast IPA mention: Space Dust aka “It’s time to get Dusted!”

Fat Tire
An amber ale without any bite as it goes down, you’re free to drink as many as possible before/while riding a bicycle (Drinking Law per New Belgium’s packaging). The brewery hosts a yearly race where one must consume a six-pack, hop on a two-wheeler, and brave the rape trails at nearby Colorado State University. (Legend has it that the monster truck Grave Digger once impregnated a dozen under-age cyclists, which was most alarming because one of them was a male.) The color of this rum-tum-chugger suggests you’re sipping a dozen ounces of freshly melted pennies, which is the right headspace as a night of budding euphoria, flattening onset of reality, and dejected self-loathing guides you to bed later than necessary to ruin your subsequent day at the office. Fat Tire: You’re not depressed, you just find it all unfulfilling without obstacles.

Well, after that sequence, why in the world would you want any more analyses? Don’t ask Colleen Pfeffenreffer of Klamath Falls, Oregon. She writes: “Big Meech Larry Hoover. Sorry, I was asking Alexa to play that Rick Ross song. Anyway…how about enlightening us with the best snack foods that aren’t baked goods?” Curiously specific but okay! Hope you eat them while gettin’ work, hallelujah.

Snacks*
Cherry Pull ‘n’ Peel Twizzlers
Like eating spaghetti if you fused it together then coated it in sugar then made it slightly more al dente then made it bottomlessly addictive while simultaneously making it impossible to become full minus the “wasteful” boiling water (I throw mine at my neighbor’s wife). One of the most confounding items in the world of Foodstuffs, any kind of licorice is my favorite snack food, but Big Licorice’s ability to let me play with my sugar noodles earns the top slot. Other Twizzler varieties can be used as drinking straws, nasal inhalant tubes (see: booger sugar snorters), Singapore canes (assembly required), action figure handcuffs or lassos, and even as earrings (wedding recommended unless attending four funerals) and/or a Prince Albert (replace daily). Truth be told, I think candy cigarettes should be revived as candy pussysticks using licorice as the puffing vessel. Here’s how you save face, JUUL.

Movie theater popcorn with layered “butter”
No complaints will ever be accepted about this fiber-filled fun fest, but if Covid taught us anything, it’s that movie theaters will never guarantee free refills after a pandemic. It’s downright unlawful that they no longer offer change if you pay with cash, but to happily accept my Dogecoin remittance for Orville Redenbacher’s bread and butter while refusing to reload the corn container is a sin. Fun game: show up to the cineplex in costume as guitar virtuoso Buckethead, remove your New Era KFC fitted, and request a half-priced brackish binful for providing your own kernel canister. If you own Apocalypse Now on Blu-ray, check the deleted scene where an inebriated Marlon Brando, in character as Col. Kurtz, challenges a hallucination of Col. Parker to engage in fisticuffery. Now that’s next level word play. “Is it though?” Ms. Pfeffenreffer said to herself while deeming its lack of topicality poppycorncock. Well played, ma’am/miss/may. 

Trader Joe’s Organic Elote Corn Chip Dippers
More corn? Perfect item for a ball tongue. Sorry, that’s KoЯn humor. There is no better bag of chips in this world. The flavor is a mixture of garlic, chili powder, citrus, and cheese—I recommend cobbed corn covered in mayo dotted by TJ’s elote spice blend—and it’s as addictive as your favorite Doritos without resulting in that hollowed out feeling in the pit of your stomach afterward. Crush them and use when making cornbread on Cinco de Mayo, a Frida Kahlo favorite (DYK: she, sad but true, notoriously unibrowbeat her chef). Runner-up: Kettle’s chili lime chips in avocado oil. I have no jokes about said chip. *everyone applauds* 

Roasted unsalted (exceptions for lightly salted) peanuts
Used to eat peanuts with the shell on until I lacerated my anus. Name me another snack food you can consume in a public setting while treating the area around you like a trash heap only for nobody to get upset about it. I once encouraged my buddy Connor to dump his shells on the stairs of the Hartford Civic Center (I’ll deadname it at my own unwoke peril, dammit!) during a Roger Waters concert, which was more satisfying than hearing any deep cuts off The Wall, especially when one unsuspecting ticketholder nearly slipped to his death reincarnation as the next Dalai Lama. And you thought peanuts could only be used as a murder weapon on those with allergies? If you are allergic: blame your parents, then substitute pretzel rods.

Heath bar
Nutrageous was my de facto bar for ages until Family Dollar jaunts for gel ink pens and discount loofahs unveiled Heaths for impulse buying satisfaction. Learning that they were commonly included in WW2 rations became an additional reason to defend them (and America) when friends used my Heath devotion as additional proof that I’m thirty-nine-going-on-Omaha-Beach-survivor-age. Crazy that Anne Frank melted one down to use for a month’s worth of diary entries when her pencil supply dried up, but that’s a level of concentration few would camp for. *boooooo* Oh, that was in poor taste? Wait until you see the Family Dollar in Amsterdam. Toffee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a Dutch chum.

Well, this is has become mostly regrettable at this stage. What’s our final talkin’ point? Chester Molestire (pronounced exactly like you think) of Missouri City, Texas, asks: “You used to write about food in haiku form prior to your masterful limericks. How about, as promised last time, your favorite pies?”

Geez, Chess, you know to make a boy blush, and I’m in no way alluding to your surname.

Pies
Coconut custard
Beloved faux nut
Shreds in eggy milk sugar
Topped with fresh nutmeg

Pecan
Unique recipe?
Add cumin, coriander
Ruins Thanksgiving 

Banana cream
Have I mentioned yet?
Baking’s not my cuppa tea
Supermarkets, bitch! 

Mincemeat
Best eaten with a
Stiff upper lip, cloudburst, and
Some rotten chompers  

Chicken pot (or shepherd’s)
Unlike previous
Selections, serve savory
With an ice cream scoop

Ran out of journalistic steam toward the end there, huh? Big thanks to Josephine, Ulysses, Colleen, and Chester for inquiring about the hole in my face. Got off the horn with Moore moments ago; he said that he was looking forward to bed because fresh eggs are being cooked as the star of the morning’s prison breakfast, a reminder that as we get older, each tongue-using opportunity is one of the most prized elements about continuing to breathe air. Oh, I’m sorry, is my circumlocution showing? What might the maestro—me, moi—tackle during the already hotly anticipated third installment? Will the column be purchased only to be morphed into a sponsored and commoditized podcast? Pay no mind to what they say. It doesn’t matter anyway. Hey, hey, hey! My lips are sealed. Bye, Mennen.