The Girl Who Ate Everything

Press Toast

On Monday I went to Press Toast for a sandwich. A part of me kept going, "You want to go back to Crosby Connection! You want soft foccacia bread stuffed with stuff! You want a brownie!" But then another part of me went, "You should try something new! If you don't, you'll be doing your readers a disservice. And maybe you'll find something you like. Or maybe you'll hate it. Well. Stop talking to yourself." I had actually been to Press Toast before (they have since upgraded from a tiny hole-in-the-wall to a slightly-larger-hole-in-the-wall), but all I got was a honey and banana sandwich. Perhaps it was time for something of the non-sweet variety.

avocado toast

It's called Press Toast because their sandwiches are pressed and toasted; fascinating, yes? The avocado comes with mayo, swiss cheese, and za'atar. I couldn't vouch for the za'atar's presence since I had no idea what it was, but the other stuff is there.

innards

Gooey melted cheese and mooshed avocado smushed out of the warm, crispy, soft bread. Oh. Boy. I love me some cheese globs. I would just eat a plain cheese sandwich, but I figured avocado offered some good fat. Then again, the mayo probably cancelled out any of the health giving properties. Overall, my press toasted sandwich of warm mashy avocado and cheese was awesome in tastiness and price ($4). Hopefully I'll go back again soon.

avocado sammich

Look, more 'cado! While I always thought Panya's sandwiches looked good, I was never compelled to try one. My avocado and sandwich kick led me to try their avocado sandwich, which as you can see is really like 75% of a sandwich. I mean, it's half of a double-layered sandwich. Is that odd? I don't know. I thought one sandwich would consist of both halves, but apparently it doesn't. Anyway, it was a good thing that it was only half of the sandwich because when I was done with it, I felt like I had been impregnated with an avocado brick. I know that makes no sense, but it doesn't have to...this is my blog and I do not claim to make sense.. 'Cado brick. In mah belly. Sitting. Waiting. Not digesting as comfortably as it should. I thought the walnut bread was great, but there wasn't enough non-avocado substance (in this case, lettuce, thinly sliced cucumber, and tomato slices) to cut through the neatly layered avocado chunks. Cheese would've helped. Melted cheese. In warm, globby form. Oh well.

Lenny's

But that night's sandwich (yes, I'm still eating the damn things) redeemed the impregnanting avocado brick. I went around the corner of my dorm (which I rarely do; seriously, I don't know what the hell is behind there) to Lenny's, a chain of delis in NYC. While there weren't many customers actually inside at the time, employees were busy packing bags and delivery boys constantly filed in an out. My interest in Lenny's developed after one of my friends kept praising its awesome sandwiches. Once I went there with her while she was picking up dinner.

"Robyn, you know you want it."
"Eh, I'm not really a sandwich person."
"How can you resist? IT'S SOO GOOOD."
"Ehhhhh..."

She got a sandwich piled high with roast beef. I'm not a big fan of roast beef. What am I a fan of?

meatloaf sandwich of doom

When I walked out of Lenny's, my first thought was, "...Why the hell did I get a meatloaf sandwich? I've never even eaten a meatloaf sandwich before." When I got back to my dorm and unwrapped the meatloaf log, I saw that I had made the right choice. Juicy slabs of meatloaf topped with melted cheese, crisp lettuce, caramelized onions, gravy, and future atherosclerosis. So delicious. With better bread this would've been even more delicious, but I won't complain since it was nicely toasted. Structurally, this sandwich held up really well; nothing splodged out and the sauce didn't make things too soggy. You get a hearty portion for about $8, which I honestly found daunting at first, but soon realized wasn't when I ate the whole damn sandwich in seemingly 15 seconds. I wasn't even hungry. Seriously, I went for the sake of telling you lovely humans that Lenny's makes a yummy meatloaf sandwich, not to quel my nonexistent hunger.

As for hunger...yesterday in my "Food and Nutrition in a Global Society" class we watched a documentary called "Waiting" about people in Sudan patiently waiting for food that was basically sitting right in front of them to be distributed by nonexistent officials as the people starved. In the end, the people may or may not have gotten the food since enemies took over the village on the same day that officials finally came in to distribute the food. It was painful. Of course, by the end of the day I had forgotten about the starving, skeletal, distended-stomached Sudanese and stuffed myself with more food than most of those people would ever seen in their lifetimes. Eating is...a weird subject. It's a given that we can eat just about whatever we want. No one will ever starve in America unless it's a conscious decision or if the person is so isolated that no one else notices.

I wish I could feed everyone.

...Someone needs to take my cake. I'll describe it later.

Note: I was way too tired to adequately write this entry. Crap. What's done is done. What you SHOULD do is check out Kathy's latest post about Patisserie Claude. I don't care if you're busy (actually, if you're reading my blog you're probably killing time); click that link and read the whole thing. You might get a tear in your eye. Or feel something in your soul. It's probably the sweetest food blog entry I've ever read, a beautiful tale of pastry lovers. Enjoy. :)