Anatomy Of "The Nine Dollar Sandwich"

The perfect sandwich starts with a variety of summer vegetables grilled the exact amount of time it takes them to become succulent, but not mushy. Don't be intimidated though, practice will guide you to that zen moment at your grill. Mark is turning the zucchinin and peppers. Not pictured are the eggplant rounds that are already done. (Of course, Lucille, you guessed right...can the perfect sandwich not have eggplant?? No way!)

This version of the best sandwich I have ever eaten is liberally coated with pesto on each bread slice. The bread should obviously not be made by any company whose name is follwed by "TM". Wonderbread will not only kill you by gluing all your intestines together, it will ruin any good food that comes in contact with it. You must use artisan breads to fully appreciate this baby. Of course, your pesto must also be superb. It's so easy to make yourself I don't think there's an excuse not to, unless you can't obtain fresh basil where you are. (I mean...does such a hell exist?)

Lisa slow roasted a bunch of her gorgeous huge home-grown tomatoes with some salt and pepper (and a few herbs I think?). This ellevates your fabulous fresh tomatoes into a legendary culinary achievement. They become richer, tangier, and concentrated. The cheese is fresh mozarella which has been our cheese of choice, though honestly, most other good quality cheeses will also be super good.

The trick is that once you have assembled your sandwich, you wrap it up in tin foil and put it on the grill 'til the cheese is all melty. The grill should be on medium high so the bread gets a little toasty. We all decided that we would be perfectly happy paying nine dollars for this treat in a restaurant. Mark has enthusiastically decided that Lisa and I should have a sandwich stand on Highway 99. He has suggested fixing up that mangy old gas station to make into our shop. (He knows I've had my eye on that ramshackle building for a while now...)

I'm going to write down the recipe for the pesto just in case any of you want to make this sandwich and don't already have a favorite recipe for it (most cooks do). This one was created by my close friend (and four star cook) Chelsea and me. We made a few batches to get it just right. But pesto is one of those marvelous sauces that you can (and should) always tweak to suit your personal tastes:

Mrs. C and Mrs. W's Pesto:
2 cups tightly packed basil leaves
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup parmesean cheese
1/3 cup lightly roasted pine nuts
two or three garlic cloves
1 tsp salt*
1/2 tsp pepper

Put all the dry ingredients in a food processor. Pour in the oil. Blend the crap out of it until it is precisely the texture you like your pesto to be.

*Chelsea and I have a stylistic difference of opinion on the amount of salt necessary to make this pesto shine...I like one teaspoon, she likes two. Basically, use as much as you think is best.

As a last note: you should know that Chelsea is the kind of brilliant cook who never writes any recipes down. She is constantly coming up with fantastic meals, dressings, and sauces and it's always by dint of winging it. I admire this ability of hers A WHOLE LOT. However, I like to be able to repeat really good recipes consistently so I like to write them down for reference. It's like pulling teeth to get Chelsea to tell me what amounts of ingredients she has used. It's not that she doesn't want anyone to know, it's just that she always thinks it's so obvious. So I have been collecting recipes of hers whenever I can. Though we came up with this one together, I have other ones that I had to work a lot harder to record.