The Elvis Sandwich

People have said for years that Elvis had a special sandwich craving that his private cook would make for him quite frequently - a banana and peanut butter sandwich.

I’ve been a fan of peanut butter sandwiches my whole life, but it wasn’t until I moved to the South and kept hearing about the Elvis sandwich that I ever got around to trying a banana and peanut butter sandwich, and to be honest, it’s quite good! It goes great with a glass of ice cold milk.

Another southern specialty is a fried bologna sandwich. Haven’t tried that one yet.

Taste of Chicago

This year’s Taste is the 28th annual - how about that for a long successful run? It has changed a lot from when it started, but it is a great street festival and we are looking forwarding to going again this summer.

The cost is only $8 for a strip of 12 food and drink tickets. All of the vendors are required to offer a taste for just 1 ticket, and then they can offer anything else they want for as many tickets as they want to charge. Last year the average food item cost 4 tickets and we bought 3 extra strips for just two of us to fully enjoy and sample everything we wanted to try.

We really liked several of the different foods and made note of which restaurants had the best food so we could patronize them later in the year. I even tried fried goat cheese for the first time - but I found it rather strong and don’t think I would order that again. I found one vendor selling key lime pie and jumped at the chance to have some, but what they served was absolutely AWFUL and nothing like the real southern key lime pie recipes taste like. But the variety of ethnic tastes was fantastic and one of the things that I love about Chicago - the international influence on everything there, with a solid core of Americana.

Fletcher

A local coffeehouse is one of my customers and I like to stop by to patronize them every once in a while, even though they are a little out of my way to do so.

On the counter by the register was a CD by a band called, “Fletcher.” The photo on the front is three guys in jeans and tee shirts. On closer look I realized that they looked a lot alike, so they must be brothers. But two of them looked a LOT alike and I realized that they are twins.

The coffee shop clerk told me that they are indeed brothers and indeed two are twins, that they like locally and he is helping them out putting their CD out on the counter for sale. They have a southern rock sound, which is something I like.

I struck a deal with the clerk - if he can get the brothers to autograph the CD for me the next time they come in the store then I will buy one along with my iced coffee. Let’s see how that works out - I’d like to give them a listen.

Spam Burgers

There was a commercial on TV last night that took me by complete surprise. It was for Spam burgers - with a video of a burger bun, thick slice of grilled Spam, topped with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, etc. A tasty alternative to beef burgers, I suppose.

So today, being a complete lemming when it comes to media’s influence on this generation, I bought some Spam. Not just one can of Spam - I bought a four pack at Sam’s Club.

Must have Spam.

Must have Spam.

Must have Spam.

I have Spam.

Blueberries

As kids we were taken to several different places that let you “pick your own” fruits and vegetables. My parents would take us because we would save some money by picking your own, but also because it was a wholesome family activity that would keep us busy for sometimes hours at a time.

My parents believed that fresh picked not only tastes best but is healthiest for you, and I agree. We often went to a farm that grew strawberries and we would load up the freezer with fresh strawberries - my mom’s most favorite fruit in the world. We also picked other fruits and vegetables, and we patronized a lot of fresh fruit and vegetable stands that lined the Maryland highways, buying everything from fresh peaches to cantalopes to green beans to sweet corn.

When my children were young, we continued that tradition with them and they have picked many things from other’s gardens as well as our own. But our favorite has always been to pick blueberries. Not only is picking blueberries great family fun, but they freeze and keep well, and can be used in so many delicious things from the kitchen. There’s nothing like a stack of grandma’s fresh blueberry pancakes with melting real butter and warm blueberry syrup!