March 2007 – Page 3 – Dan Dickinson: The Primary Vivid Weblog

Since I am in close contact with a handful of the Gothamist staff, I occasionally bat around jokes and thoughts about the news that they’re working on posting. Every now and then, they get included in the article.

This happened last week, when MTA head Peter Kalikow rushed to fix an LIRR station at the complaint of a neighbor / fellow yacht club member Deanna Banks. I had offered:

“Oh, we should be dressing up as yacht club members and protesting outside MTA headquarters so Kalikow can get to work on the subways.”

This got included in the article, and the article garnered a few of the regular MTA-griping comments that are typical of any story about mass transit.

But last night, a new comment appeared – from Deanna herself! And this has made my day:

Therefore not knowing who Mr Dickinson is, maybe I dont get his Thirston Howle humor that did not give one positive solution in order to help all of us commuters have a better experience. But hey we can dress up as yacht club members Captain Dan can wear the scramble egg hat with the monkey bars on his shoulders and we all can have a good laugh in order to relieve some of the tension that we seem to be experiencing on the train.

Cooking has always vexed me.

On one hand, I have low tolerance for the prep work, the shopping, the cleaning, the waiting, the unplanned multitasking, and the inevitable throwing away of parts unused. Worse, the occasions I have decided to cook, my instincts to be creative often lead to some utterly stupid meals. (Ask Katie about my attempts to be creative with Chicken Parm.) Result: almost all of my meals are takeout or delivery.

On the other hand, I love food. This certainly doesn’t hurt the desire to eat at restaurants, but it does always pain me that I can’t even seem to make much right at home.

Two weeks ago, I decided to make a run to the grocery store and pick up a few things so I could do something easy, but with a little bit of effort. End result: some excellent homemade croutons that topped a pretty decent chicken Caesar salad.
Inspired by [Serious Eats’ National Pork Day coverage](http://mt.seriouseats.com/cgi-bin/mte/mt-search.cgi?tag=pork&blog_id=9) – particularly [Meg’s comment about her favorite pork recipe](http://www.seriouseats.com/talk/2007/03/question-of-the-day-care-to-sh.html#13625) – I decided to get cooking again this morning.

* I grabbed some nice fresh european bread, a cluster of vine tomatoes, a head of Boston lettuce, a small bottle of Hellman’s Mayo and a pack of hardwood smoked bacon.
* I baked the bacon after seasoning it a little with some sea salt and cracked pepper. I have learned my lesson that trying to cook a lot of bacon in a skillet is both a time sink and a recipe for grease burns. It still came out the right level of chewy that a sandwich such as this requires.
* I ripped off two leaves of lettuce per sandwich, and sliced the tomatoes into four thin slices. I do not believe in shredded lettuce for sandwiches.
* The bread was toasted so that it just barely browned – leaving the insides chewy but the outside firm enough to hold up the sandwich.
* Mayo was blended with this lovely fried garlic olive oil we’ve had kicking around in about a 3:1 ratio to form a makeshift garlic aioli.

And when it was all assembled, it all clicked.

Yes, cooking a BLT is not the most exciting thing in the world – but I defy you to look at that picture and not get hungry.

Food is even more delicious when you make it yourself. Be good to yourself – cook something. If I can do it, you sure as hell can.