A week ago, I made apple sandwiches for dinner.

I mean, I made apple and caramelized onion sandwiches for dinner.

I mean, I made sandwiches containing apples, caramelized onions, goat cheese, and smoked tomato jam for dinner.

Man, those sound really different, don’t they?

While making the sandwiches, all I could focus on was finding some way to save dinner. See, my original plan sounded dreamy to me. And simple. And oh, how I need simple after work these days. And the plan was chicken sandwiches.

Unfortunately, I got home, started getting things ready for sandwiches, and discovered that the leftover roast chicken looked bad. And I was bummed. And freaked out, because I had to figure some substitution fast. Because while chicken sandwiches with caramelized onion, goat cheese, and tomato jam sounded good, without the chicken it somehow no longer sounded good.

I hit on an apple, and some salt, and I thought it was fantastic. Bill seemed pretty pleased with it too, though I have to admit that as I type this, I suddenly have doubts. I don’t know why.

Anyway, it was only later, after we’d had a successful and tasty meal, that I got to thinking about what “apple sandwiches” might mean. What they say.

Partially, they just say we had a tasty meal. Partially they say that I can make it work on the fly, at least sometimes.

But it’s also been making me wonder if all I said to someone was that I’d had an apple sandwich for dinner, they’d look at me like I was ridiculous. That, quite likely, having eaten apple sandwiches should (and would?) be shameful. And while the caramelized onions help the story a bit, it’s still dodgy. At best. It makes me think of “lettuce sandwiches” and a story I read when I was a kid.

No, it’s everything together that moves it into the realm of “acceptable,” it feels like. And, for me, that’s not entirely comfortable. But I think being uncomfortable is no reason not to think about it. Indeed, I strongly suspect it means I should stop and examine more closely. Is it because it seems so fancy to me, but was so simple? Is it because it made me think of “lettuce sandwiches”? Does it relate to everything I’ve learned about food access, people’s food opinions and food gentrification?

I suspect it also relates to a bunch of thinking I’ve been doing recently about what “to cook” means, and my complicated feelings with it, and so on. I’ve also been thinking, quite a bit, on attitudes I used to hold or still do. Things I have accepted (or, worse, repeated!) uncritically. And as I made apple sandwiches, especially in the context of other posts I’ve been drafting or thinking about for a year…

Let’s just say that I’m sharing with you both a recipe and another brick in my thought process regarding food, expectations regarding food, and more. Over the next year, particularly this month of February, I’ll share a bit more. But, for now, I encourage you to think about this stuff for yourself, possibly while making this sandwich.

Ingredients

1 large apple, sliced thinly. I used Jazz apples, I think.
2 oz room temperature chèvre

Some amount of thawed, warmed caramelized onions from that batch you threw in the freezer after slow cooking them

2 tbsp tomato jam, tomatoes first smoked over hickory chips.

2 slices of your favorite bread, toasted

Smoked salt, however much you think is right

Instructions

It’s a sandwich. You can probably do this without instructions. But what I did was mix together the jam and chèvre, then spread that mix on the toast, fairly thickly. Then I layered apples on it, then sprinkled some smoked salt on the apples. Once I was happy with the salt, I spread a layer of onions on top, then slapped the other piece of toast on top. Then, to make it easier to eat, I CUT IT IN HALF. And it was good.

Cooking and Consumption Notes

Cooking

I seriously picked this because it was not really cooking. Because it could be assembled in as little as five minutes. Sooo…. Yeah.

I made it a second time, with some leftover bits. I forgot salt. Don’t do that.

Consumption

Super tasty. Super easy. If you like smoke, you’re going to like this. If you like not having to figure out a complicated meal but want one that tastes complicated, this is it. Probably chicken would work well as well. I’d leave out the salt in that case.