#sandwichproject

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Week 52: The Final Sandwich

I started the New York Sandwich Project in January of 2014 with four major goals. These were the first two (the primary goals):

1.) Force myself to explore the city that may indeed be the cultural, financial, and ethnic epicenter of the world.

2.) Eat a stupid amount of sandwiches.

To this extent, I was extremely successful. My days were saturated with adventure, both cultural and culinary. One day, I would be in the Bronx, watching a Yankees game and crushing Italian heroes in Arthur Avenue, the next, I'd be at some trust hipster fund kid's art expo in Williamsburg, consuming tortas from a food truck and road sodas from my pocket, and the third day, I'd be sampling steak-grade prime rib sandwiches before an outdoor movie and overpriced cocktails on a rooftop lounge in Midtown. I owe these glorious days and sloppy nights, in large part, to The Project.

However, I would be remiss to neglect my friends and readers for the unrelenting support via ideas, connections, and sandwich adventure partnerships. You allowed me to experience so much more than I ever would have otherwise, and intake superfluous amounts of fun in the process. For that, I am eternally grateful.                    The other two goals were secondary and slightly more esoteric, though nonetheless important to me. Here they are:

1.)  Achieve some fame via The Project.

2.) Understand the City of New York.

For the former, I would have only considered myself successful if I had a coffee table book deal lined up involving sandwiches. Yes, I was lucky enough to be featured on some restaurant websites and Facebook pages, talk my way into a few free sandwiches, and connect with other sandwich connoisseurs  and bloggers along the way (including one who was insistent on the necessity of heirloom tomatoes in a BLT, and rightfully so). I'm not necessarily ready to throw in the towel on the prospect of a book deal, but I can accept the fact that fame and success are often relative and fickle things.

As for understanding the city of New York, this was more of a writer's goal, a task that became increasingly impossible the more I explored this behemoth metropolis. Movies and television try to brand NYC as glamorous, dark, broke, inspiring, crime-ridden, hilarious, stylish, soulless, soulful, coy, lonely, a cesspool of sex, and a thousand other things. It IS all of these, and at the same time none of them. The problem with defining a city as diverse and grand as New York is that you can't do it; you are attempting to quantify the unquantifiable, reduce the irreducible. New York is simply New York.

If I were, however, asked to find a single idea that resonated throughout the entire city, from the farthest reaches of the Bronx out to Coney Island and everything in the middle, it would be hunger. I am not referring to food (despite the fact New York has the gnarliest grub on earth), but hunger for the intangibles. New Yorkers are hungry to leave their mark, they are hungry for money, hungry for success, hungry to create, to prosper. New Yorkers are hungry to win, to thrive, to love, to loathe, to experience. If there existed a sin in this city, it would be sloth. Laziness is unbecoming of a New Yorker, and such lackadaisical denizens are cast aside, into the fires of Jersey, where there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Here, pride is a virtue. This is not necessarily in the sense of selfishness (though it commonly is), but in the sense of self-interest. We are all trying to make something of ourselves, of our lives. We are trying to make something.

That is how I made my choice for the final sandwich of The Project. It's known as a PBLT, or a pork belly, lettuce, and tomato. Marinated in hoisin sauce and sprinkled with sea salt and black pepper, this fatty grilled pork belly sits between two slices of fresh baked rye bread, one spread with avocado, one with a sriracha mayo. Combined with arugula, heirloom tomatoes, and organic cucumbers, the PBLT was a crisp, hearty, dirty sandwich experience.

But more than that, it was mine.

  I made it, with my own two hands. It grew from my life's collective culinary experiences, beginning in rural Greenfield, then to Boston, Gwangju, Seoul, and all over Asia, until now, living in the great New York City. Sure, I may have burnt the pork belly a bit and it could have used a little more tomato, but it was delicious, and I'm damn proud of what I created.

Thank you for reading.

[sandwichproject-blog]

Week 45: Chaperoning a High School Dance in the South Bronx and Ground Short Rib Burgers

This Friday, I was asked to chaperone the dance at my high school in the South Bronx. Filled with nostalgia of of my high school dances of days past, I gave a resounding:

"Sign me up!"

I have learned, as I get older, that our memories are sometimes selective and often flat-out wrong. The reality of the situation set in when the ops manager cocked her head at me and said, "You sure about that, Foley?"

What I had either overlooked, or simply forgotten, was that I had just enlisted in the ranks of a team of adults with the sole goal of keeping some three hundred fifteen-year-olds from engaging in sexual intercourse at school. 

"No one gets pregnant at the dance," the ops manager shook her finger at me. "You need to make sure of that."

For a frame of reference, the Bronx has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in New York by a long-shot.

We were briefed on covering the exits, making sure to prohibit these hormone-time bombs from exploding on school grounds. Teachers from past years recounted tales of the debauchery of our scholars in the past. My stomach did a full barrel roll that day when I observed a student in another classroom jump up on top of her chair and proceed to twerk, as if it were going out of style (it's not).

To add icing to the already volatile cake, the dance's name was of poor taste. In reference to the power grid failures that often plague NYC, and not at all in reference to memory-loss-induced by drinking, the dance was called the "Blackout Party." Shit.

I arrived that night at 7:00, full of fear and trepidation, for what was about to transpire over the next three hours.

And then, it turned out to be a high school dance.

The first hour, the students spent mulling around, in distinct, gender-segregated groups. Dancing, tame, tame dancing, began in the second hour and consumed most of the student body over the final hour. Aside from the occasional few moves that the church elders would not approve of, I couldn't get over how boring these kids were. And that made me happier than words could describe.

Then I saw a couple of my freshmen making out and I threw up in my mouth a little bit. Overall, though, I couldn't have been more pleased with how timid and awkward that dance was, in the truest spirit of high school dances.

Week 45: Whitmans

The measure of a perfect burger is if you can eat it as it comes; you don't need to add ketchup, hot sauce, take off or add any ingredients, or send it back to be less/more cooked. Just like with a fine steak, the only issue should be how quickly you can devour it without choking, because it's delicious and you earned it.

Whitmans, a cozy little joint in the East Village, satisfies all of the above prerequisites in a way only a handful of other burgers have in my life. While all the add-ons and extra ingredients are finely crafted, it comes down to one thing: the meat. This is where they discriminate themselves from the pack, by creating patties of ground short rib meat. It makes all the difference. The the tenderness and quality of the meat elevates the patty beyond the realm of typical burger, to the point it needs nothing extraneous, only to exist. And that would be enough. However, the two burgers I sampled just used that as a baseline, and then shot out to outer-space. 

My burger of choice featured a blend of short rib, brisket, and three kinds of unrelentingly spicy peppers, one of which was habanero. The balance of savory and spicy was flawless - I had to make a conscious effort to pace myself on the burger.

Number two involved two short rib patties practically bursting at the seams with a layer of blue cheese, to the point that it physically squirted at you when you bit in. Both were perfect as presented, requiring little else than to be picked up and consumed. My biggest complaint was that there weren't six more of them on my plate.

Come to Whitmans and embrace a burger in the truest sense of the word.

[sandwichproject-blog]

Week 44: All of the Lights and Asian Ice Cream Sandwiches

The frigid night air felt new; humans have short memories when it comes to yearly weather shifts. Underdressed and freezing, I arrived with friends to a massive cluster of people at the base of the Manhattan Bridge, huddled together like a raft of penguins (yes, a group of penguins is called a "raft"), staring. We pushed our way through the overcrowded DUMBO region ("Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass") to locate the best vantage point for the consumption of the spectacle. As ominous music resonated from the giant archway, we watched as horses ran down the side of the bridge, moments before the entire structure exploded, brick by brick, while blooms of psychedelic colors emerged from the darkness. No, this was not my LSD trip in the richest area of Brooklyn, it was Festival of Lights. Birthed as a Kickstarter project, it was a massive hit, especially considering it only cost five thousand dollars to produce. 

Sure, it was over-crowded and cold as hell, but it was a spectacle, in the truest sense of the word, and a lovely addition to a November New York night.

Sandwich 44: Prince Tea House

While Manhattan's Chinatown is the largest and among the most iconic Chinatowns in the world, New York's true Chinatown is Flushing, located deep in Queens. What makes it the "true" Chinatown? The sheer Chinese experience. Chaotically driven streets, the food vendor hustler spirit, the lack of accommodation for white people, it's all here. But it takes it to the next level when it comes to the authenticity and dopeness of their food. Their lamb skewers  taste fresh out of Xi'an, dim sum is made in true Cantonese fashion, and, yes, they even have an upscale, East Asian perspective on the ice cream sandwich, at the Prince Tea House.  

Exclusively an Asian dessert and tea place, the minds behind the Prince Tea House put in substantial effort to make it really damn pretty. The decor, the desserts, and the tea are all made with the finest attention to detail, to the point that you don't know whether you should stuff them into your mouth or forever preserve them in a glass display case in your rumpus room. 

Aside from green tea creme brulee and amazing milk tea concoctions, the Prince Tea House features a trademark ice cream sandwich trio, known as Pate a Choux. Five choices exist, among them green tea, red bean, vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, each contained within puff pastry on a bed of caramel. Spoiler alert, they're crack.

Flushing is worth a day of indulgent eating and should surely be capped off with this two-month old institution, offering super sweets and ridiculously comfortable chairs for the lazy, sugar crash aftermath.

[sandwichproject-blog]

Week 43: Daylight-Savings-Marathon-Halloween

There was way too much shit going on in New York this weekend. 

Between Daylight Savings Time, Halloween, and the Marathon, New York was somehow more non-stop than usual. Below is my analysis.

Daylight Savings Time: A.k.a. Awesome Savings Time, for most New Yorkers, this additional hour provides a nice, but ultimately meaningless, extra hour of sleep. However, for the nihilistic insomniac party-starved individual, this 49-hour weekend means an entire additional hour of partying Saturday night. While this may seem inconsequential, the ramifications of this bonus hour means NYC denizens become absurdly more intoxicated than usual, and there is a 37 percent increase in table dancing and public pantslessness.

Halloween: Halloween in New York is a week-long celebration where bizarre and terrible things will happen. Coming home Friday night, I rounded a corner to find a wall of men in ninja garb with animal masks, who terrified me to the point I may have peed myself just a bit. But, while it's all fun and games in my neck of Brooklyn, Halloween becomes a much more dangerous event - where gangs hold initation tests that involve senseless acts of violence and destruction. Last year, a man with known gang ties was gunned down across the street from my school in the Bronx. 

Marathon: The legendary 26-mile run spanning 3 boroughs occurred today. In addition to my roommate, who kicked a thorough amount of ass in her run, over 50,000 runners took part in this glorious athletic spectacle, making it the world's biggest, and therefore, most awesome marathon. Truly, seeing the sheer outpouring of support and love for these athletes rekindles a sense of humanity within even the most cynical individual.

I also learned that, during a marathon, some nasty stuff can happen to you, including excessive nipple bleeding, crapping your pants, and losing toenails. 

Thought that was a good lead in to talk about sandwiches.

Sandwich 43: The Lodge

The following is a recommendation for the experience, rather than solely the breakfast sandwich, that I partook of at the Lodge. For those interested in replicated this experience, it requires agreeable weather, patience, and a mile long walk before consuming your sandwich. 

This is to be your first meal of the day. At no point do you actually visit the Lodge, a casual brunch, lunch and dinner eatery. Rather, you go next door, to its fledgling General Store, which contains the same menu, only in take-out form. The interior is nostalgic of an old New England colonial-style shop, possessing the kind of general decor that makes you say words like "rustic" without sounding like a douchebag. 

Ask for their brunch menu. Order their fried chicken sandwich and tell them to slap and egg on that bad boy. It's not on the menu, but it's a beautiful addition from the mind of Dan Foley and it cannot truly be deemed a breakfast sandwich without that fried yellow glob of undeveloped chicken embryo on it. 

Once you have the goods, evacuate the area. Walk straight west down Grand street and don't stop. A small park, never crowded, lies on the outskirts of the land mass of Brooklyn, along the East River. The river waves wash up against the rocky beach, where you will sit and forget, even if for a moment, that you live in one of the most densely populated region on the planet. 

Then, you consume that perfectly fried bird, topped with an egg, buffalo sauce, and a beautiful bitter purple slaw, and you feel a glorious unity of all things, as you gaze upon that iconic skyline, with a sandwich in your hand, looking far more massive than any of the skyscrapers across the way. 

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Week 37: Peanut Butter Hot Dogs

Sandwich 37: Crif Dogs

I wish I could say that I was the man who first devised the argument that a hot dog could, in fact, be a sandwich. Sadly, Jeb Lund beat me to the punch in July of this year, crafting what exists as one of the finest discourses I've read on sandwiches and being American in general. Seriously, read it here.  

For these reasons, I will not make the sandwich-hot-dog argument here. I will not discuss the implications of the open-faced sandwich; whether it needs to be composed of two separate pieces of bread to qualify as a sandwich and, if not, if things like burritos and calzones are then indeed sandwiches, and furthermore, if breaded chicken would technically qualify as a sandwich in this case. No, you will not see these arguments here. Such things are far too complicated and strange and sexy for me.  

I will simply say this. I recently stopped by Crif Dogs and sampled their wieners. If those mouth-watering hot dogs are not, indeed, sandwiches, if I'm not right about that, then I must be wrong about every damn thing in this crazy, mixed-up world.

Crif Dogs (named after the time co-founder, Brian Shebairo, tried to say the name of the other co-founder, Chris Antista, with a mouthful of hot dog) is a New York institution and hot dog haven. Their spot in Williamsburg has ancient arcade games for tables and display cases featuring the Star Wars action figures of my youth. In short, it's a great place to wait in line. Even with no line, though, hot dogs take over five minutes to prepare, which means they're either really fresh or really lazy, though I'd like to believe the former.

But back to the sandwich argument. The beautiful thing about "NYC's #1 wieners" is that they are basically sandwiches that happen to have hot dogs in them. Smell me on this for a second. For instance, their Tsunami dog, which is wrapped in bacon and slathered with teriyaki, pineapple, and green onion, sounds like a wild and original sandwich until you release it's a hot dog. Or perhaps their Philly Tubesteak (perhaps the greatest name ever), an all beef dog dripping with cheese whiz and sauteed onions. Tell me how, how these could possibly fail to qualify as sandwiches. 

My choice wieners were the Spicy Red Neck and the Little Ma. The first, a spicy minx of a dog, piled on with chili, slaw, and jalapenos. And of course, it's wrapped in bacon.

However, in terms of utter absurdity and deliciousness, the Little Ma is the true champion. A bacon wrapped dog, with (get this) peanut butter, a pickled cucumber, and crushed potato chips. It's probably the best hot dog I've had in my life.

If I still have any credibility after that statement, you are an open-minded cat and I applaud you. And if there was ever a dog to try, it's this. It wins for being tantalizing, sure, but more so, for being nostalgic to my childhood for no reason at all and manipulating my taste buds to fire off in bizarre and wonderful combinations. My nuerons went bananas for this dog and yours will too. 

I went sober, but I can imagine after about thirty or forty beers, this place would be the closest thing on earth to heaven. Check it out, as soon as you can, and get weird with some wieners.

[sandwichproject-blog]

Week 34: The South Bronx: the Gentrification-Killer and Israeli Brunch

My old friend and former roommate Josh once described New York City as “it’s kinda like if God threw up everywhere.”

Well put, Josh.

Within this city lurks a driving force; a multi-ethnic whirlwind, swirling together a vast array of cultures and peoples, leaving a trail of kimchi tacos and Irish-Dominican babies in its wake. The neighborhoods epitomize this phenomenon, perhaps the prime reason so many people are so anti-gentrification. The cultural flair, the sense of commonality and culture, is enticing, even if it is contained within just a few city blocks. You can see Chinese families whose American lineage stretches back generations, Russians who have converted regions of Brooklyn into little Moscows. The fear, of course, is that all of these neighborhoods will continue to get pushed out, as yuppie scum (like myself) continue to push in, until everything has been converted into vegan-Thai yoga juice shops.

Since I took the job teaching English in the South Bronx, I no longer have this fear. There are some places that are simply not, as my co-worker put it, “white-friendly.” The South Bronx is maintained by black, Hispanic, and Italian (still white, but you know, like not generic boring white) business and apartment owners, making pushing them out a far greater (and more expensive) feat. Coupled with the surplus of bodegas, barred-up windows, and impossibly long trek to Manhattan, the South Bronx collectively terrifies and bores the vast majority of gentrifiers, and as such, these places are culturally safe-guarded.

But as such destinations carry with them an apprehension to the vanilla-skinned people, I was weary coming in for my preliminary interview. That did not last long. Walking through these supposedly terrifying streets, I experienced a paradigm shift. I saw what the South Bronx actually had: more parks per square foot than any neighborhood I’ve encountered in Manhattan or Brooklyn, a complete lack of traffic and congestion, and legitimate yards with lawns and trees and green and gates. Seriously, this is what the Bronx looks like to all those who are too scared to venture up.

And then there was the woman, who walked up next to me that day and, in an angelic voice, asked me if I was coming in for an interview.

“Yes,” I said. “How did you know?”

“You belong here, honey,” she said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get it.”

The Bronx possesses a character and a zest that I am just beginning to uncover. It’s hard, sure, far harder than any of the other boroughs, but perhaps that’s part of its appeal. It’s a challenge, a new adventure. And I dig.

Sandwich 34: Zizi Limona

My current on-again-off-again roommate is a war photographer. Having traveled most of the globe in search of the world’s most gruesome locales and documenting it in still-frames, he tells stories that would make even the most adventurous of us itchy in our seats. His most recent excursion, which was only slated to be a few weeks, lasted almost three months, as he was held up in both the Ukraine and Gaza for nearly a quarter of the year. He returned safe, unchanged, and craving Israeli Shakshuka.

I constantly give the Jews credit for being able to endure as a culture and a people for so many thousands of years, but also, for making bomb-ass food without the aid of pork or the cheese-meat combo (two of my favorite things). Going to Israeli Zizi Limona last weekend, it turns out their brunch egg sandwich game is seriously on point.

Two sandwiches, both deliciously intoxicating. The ingredients sound basic, their Challah Sandwich is composed of (according to the menu) omelette, charred veggies, and harissa and their Sabih Croissant is potato salad, hardboiled egg, eggplant, and harissa. Neither of these sound particularly complicated, unless if you’re a n00b and didn’t know what harissa is (like myself), but much like another nearby sandwich destination, Saltie, simplicity is divine. The vegetables are perfectly charred, the egg salad contains just a hint of vinegar, and Zizi’s was the first time I had ever consumed a grilled croissant.

And Harissa, for those interested, is hot chili pepper place from Tunisia. And it’s dope. Alongside shakshuka, four dollar beers and five dollar drinks, it’s one of the most reasonably priced brunches will encounter in Williamsburg. 

[sandwichproject-blog]

Week 31: Freeganim and Goat Neck Sandwiches

Coming back from a lamb neck feast with my roommate the other night, I encountered a cloister of homeless men and women ransacking the garbage of a shopkeep in the East Village. As this is New York City, I thought absolutely nothing of it and went on discussing the topic at hand, most likely my disdain for pants. But as I grew closer, I noticed these homeless men and women were my age. Then I realized one of them had a more expensive cell phone than I. Simultaneously, my roommate and I turned to one another and uttered a single word:

“Freegans."

Freegans, the cultural outliers who practice Freeganism, fall somewhere in the spectrum between hyper-idealists and disease-infested-parasites, depending on where you draw your lines in the sand. Their cause is indeed a noble one; Mother Earth is super polluted, let’s cut down on how much we trash her sacred grounds. But their methodology basically boils down to them digging through the trash for scraps of food that’s been thrown away.

“Free” (not paying) + “Vegan” (hyper-focused with the earth) = "Freegan." Get it?

As a man who always subscribes to the "clean plate club" mentality, I was intrigued. A minimal amount of research on http://freegan.info/ later, I found myself conflicted, hungry, and a little dirty. Freegans do make a valid point: we throw away a lot of perfectly edible food. And that is a shame, something should surely be done about this wastefulness. But instead of changing public policy or starting campaigns for restaurants and shops to offer “expiration date deals,” they dumpster dive, scavenge through the trash, dig thorough garbage to make full use of that which others disposed. My only issue is their steadfast claim it's "safe." How the hell do you know? That semi-stale scone might have just been sitting in the display case too long, sure. It also could have been the one they accidentally made with soap.

I tried to keep an open mind, but then I dug deeper, learning about the "Pillars of Freeganism" and realized that a lot of these Freegan folk are just moochers. For example, to avoid reliance on oil, Freegans “use other methods of transportation including trainhopping, hitchhiking, walking, skating, and biking. “ The justification for trainhopping and hitchhiking that the fascist oil will be wasted anyways, so you might as well hop aboard. And in a twisted way, that makes sense, until you consider the fact it’s kind of like saying “well, I’m totally cool with hitching a ride in an evil automobile, so long as I’m not paying for it.”

It makes me wonder how many do this because it’s trendy or they’re unbelievably cheap. However, perhaps I’m being too harsh. Perhaps Freegans are the prophets of our time, forerunners to a great movement that will change the way we view sustainability and ethics.

But seriously – trainhopping? You’re so edgy. You're so dangerous.  Just take a bus, you crazy nutjob.

Sandwich 31: Ducks Eatery

Much like Freegans, Ducks Eatery fills me with a multitude of conflicted thoughts.

I like to believe the sandwich is the pinnacle of food, as it combines so many of the best ingredients and then puts them between bread so you don’t have to use silverware (you savage, you). And, I like to believe that any true chef will take a sandwich with the utmost seriousness and deliciousness.

Enter Ducks Eatery, a new American restaurant in the East Village, famous for the oh-so-sought-after Tuesday night, a.k.a. brisket night. Yes, they have a brisket sandwich, and, yes, it's impressive. Hence, the confliction.

While most brisket destinations insist on seasoning their fare into oblivion or rely on buckets of sauce to hide any inadequacies, Ducks Eatery just focuses on slow-cooking the hell out of the uber-high quality meat, to the point that it epitomizes tender (which takes eighteen hours, to be exact). They top off the fine smoked beef with a combination of smoked ricotta and red cabbage and wedge it between two English corn muffins. And yes, in the picture, that is a piece of okra on top – because why not? Everybody likes okra.

The sandwich is delicious, balanced, and takes chances. In that sense, it does everything right. But then we ordered their smoked whole goat neck and that ruined everything.

You know when you eat food that’s so good, like so mind-explodingly good, you wonder why all food doesn’t taste that good? That was this neck. The ambrosial meat was so transcendentally succulent, the sauce so impossibly savory and sweet, no one could speak until we had broken apart the neck bones and sucked out every last inch of marrow.

And, then, the sandwich seemed lesser somehow. It's kinda like when you think your city has beautiful women, and then you move to New York. Your hometown girls are still lovely, but New York women? Damn.

So, if the Sandwich Project could make a suggestion to the wizards at Ducks Eatery: goat’s neck sandwich. Just…just think about it. Just once. For me.

[sandwichproject-blog]

Week 31: Freeganim and Goat Neck Sandwiches

Coming back from a lamb neck feast with my roommate the other night, I encountered a cloister of homeless men and women ransacking the garbage of a shopkeep in the East Village. As this is New York City, I thought absolutely nothing of it and went on discussing the topic at hand, most likely my disdain for pants. But as I grew closer, I noticed these homeless men and women were my age. Then I realized one of them had a more expensive cell phone than I. Simultaneously, my roommate and I turned to one another and uttered a single word:

“Freegans."

Freegans, the cultural outliers who practice Freeganism, fall somewhere in the spectrum between hyper-idealists and disease-infested-parasites, depending on where you draw your lines in the sand. Their cause is indeed a noble one; Mother Earth is super polluted, let’s cut down on how much we trash her sacred grounds. But their methodology basically boils down to them digging through the trash for scraps of food that’s been thrown away.

“Free” (not paying) + “Vegan” (hyper-focused with the earth) = "Freegan." Get it?

As a man who always subscribes to the "clean plate club" mentality, I was intrigued. A minimal amount of research on http://freegan.info/ later, I found myself conflicted, hungry, and a little dirty. Freegans do make a valid point: we throw away a lot of perfectly edible food. And that is a shame, something should surely be done about this wastefulness. But instead of changing public policy or starting campaigns for restaurants and shops to offer “expiration date deals,” they dumpster dive, scavenge through the trash, dig thorough garbage to make full use of that which others disposed. My only issue is their steadfast claim it's "safe." How the hell do you know? That semi-stale scone might have just been sitting in the display case too long, sure. It also could have been the one they accidentally made with soap.

I tried to keep an open mind, but then I dug deeper, learning about the "Pillars of Freeganism" and realized that a lot of these Freegan folk are just moochers. For example, to avoid reliance on oil, Freegans “use other methods of transportation including trainhopping, hitchhiking, walking, skating, and biking. “ The justification for trainhopping and hitchhiking that the fascist oil will be wasted anyways, so you might as well hop aboard. And in a twisted way, that makes sense, until you consider the fact it’s kind of like saying “well, I’m totally cool with hitching a ride in an evil automobile, so long as I’m not paying for it.”

It makes me wonder how many do this because it’s trendy or they’re unbelievably cheap. However, perhaps I’m being too harsh. Perhaps Freegans are the prophets of our time, forerunners to a great movement that will change the way we view sustainability and ethics.

But seriously – trainhopping? You’re so edgy. You're so dangerous.  Just take a bus, you crazy nutjob.

Sandwich 31: Ducks Eatery

Much like Freegans, Ducks Eatery fills me with a multitude of conflicted thoughts.

I like to believe the sandwich is the pinnacle of food, as it combines so many of the best ingredients and then puts them between bread so you don’t have to use silverware (you savage, you). And, I like to believe that any true chef will take a sandwich with the utmost seriousness and deliciousness.

Enter Ducks Eatery, a new American restaurant in the East Village, famous for the oh-so-sought-after Tuesday night, a.k.a. brisket night. Yes, they have a brisket sandwich, and, yes, it's impressive. Hence, the confliction.

While most brisket destinations insist on seasoning their fare into oblivion or rely on buckets of sauce to hide any inadequacies, Ducks Eatery just focuses on slow-cooking the hell out of the uber-high quality meat, to the point that it epitomizes tender (which takes eighteen hours, to be exact). They top off the fine smoked beef with a combination of smoked ricotta and red cabbage and wedge it between two English corn muffins. And yes, in the picture, that is a piece of okra on top – because why not? Everybody likes okra.

The sandwich is delicious, balanced, and takes chances. In that sense, it does everything right. But then we ordered their smoked whole goat neck and that ruined everything.

You know when you eat food that’s so good, like so mind-explodingly good, you wonder why all food doesn’t taste that good? That was this neck. The ambrosial meat was so transcendentally succulent, the sauce so impossibly savory and sweet, no one could speak until we had broken apart the neck bones and sucked out every last inch of marrow.

And, then, the sandwich seemed lesser somehow. It's kinda like when you think your city has beautiful women, and then you move to New York. Your hometown girls are still lovely, but New York women? Damn.

So, if the Sandwich Project could make a suggestion to the wizards at Ducks Eatery: goat’s neck sandwich. Just…just think about it. Just once. For me.