Friday, February 20, 2009

Salad Nicoise Sandwich

As I move into my middle years, sprightly on some days, cruel and ponderous on others, the hat-load of sayings and quotations that will become my sayings and quotations becomes daily more clear. Denial is not just a river in Egypt made a good show, but alas, I dumped that one in Indiana. On the other hand, "an egg without salt is like sex without sin" continues to be a favorite, perhaps because I did not fully understand the equation until I sat down to eat this salad nicoise-sandwich lunch.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since purpled thy nail? No, I have merely taken a salt-less bite of a soft boiled egg. It tastes good, the egg, but it does not zing! and zing is important. Salt brings the zing! I move onto the sandwich. Like a skier, I move onto the slope of olives. Like a jet skier, I bounce on the jugular waves of the caper berry, and like a mountain climber, I jetty and grapple with the sheer rock of the cornichon, the blandishments of the world below me, the heavy sea of tuna in oil, the mellifluous ringing of tuna in belly.

What a dork! I do apologize. Salad nicoise sandwich. Mine lacked red onion, a classic accompaniment to boiled eggs. Now, I cannot be totally sure, but an educated guess tells me that the salad (and thereby the salad sandwich) takes its name from Nice, France, the place where all the components of the salad are readily available: capers, olives, eggs, tuna, cornichons. I held fast and denied the Dijon mustard, though the trucking industry did attempt to cram some onto the roadway of baguette. Sweet, white bread, crusty delerium, how I love thee. Cloistered in these living walls of jet (skies), I digest your goodness with some rich cafe! Au revoir, my little peeps, au revoir!

Jono

2 comments:

B.B. said...

A truly great opening line. well done.

My favorite food quotation, by the way, is: apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze.

Margui said...

I really like how you write, you old fellow and friend of my friend!
Very Americanly, as well.
I do not understand the equation conceptually, you think I shall elucubrate on the other member of it while smouching un-salted eggs?