Nemo , 6 hours ago

I call her Hamela Sandwerson.

I gotta get the good sourdough from the bakery down the street and I have to get there before they slice them all so I can get an unsliced load and slice it myself, extra thick. This bread retains heat without burning like no other, so I throw the thick slices in my extrawide toaster and gather the other fixings.

On each slice, a mix of Kewpie mayonnaise (good for ages 0-99, IYKYK) and mustard. Now, at any given time I have five different styles of mustard ready to use, but for preference, to give Hamela her due, I go with the Kosciuszko beer mustard, which is readily available at the Polish deli a block from the bakery, where I also get:

Black Forest Ham! Sliced as thin as the surly teens at the deli can manage. Now, you may think this is a ham sandwich, but we want to use the most flavorful, fragrant, savory ham exactly because we’re only going to use enough to impart delicious hammy flavor, and for that, thin slicing and bunching it when we put it on the sandwich is key. I’m talking maximum surface area, babies.

Atop the ham, cucumber pickles. I prefer dill over bread-n-butter. Then a one-year-aged white cheddar, cut thin with a, I don’t know what you call it, but I call it the “cheese peeler”.

Finally, the star of the show, fresh greens. The urban farm halfway between my house and the deli & bakery are always bagging up all the edible greens they gather from the edge of their growing areas and it’s heavy on the mustard greens, making it a good complement to the ham and aged cheddar. I put enough greens on to double the height of the sandwich, then smash it down with the second slice of bread.

Warm bread on the outside, savory ham and cheese, a little bite from the mustard and pickles, and the crisp greens… it’s perfect.