A Charlottesville Sandwich

Last night, a slew of us went to see Casino Royale in Crystal City. Charles has been manning screenings all summer long of all of the Bond movies, and the most recent (and most sek-sy) one played last night. So we set up a picnic and watched (sort of) the show. It was fun! For my portion of the picnic, I made my best attempt at re-creating a Charlottesville Sandwich. Not necessarily a direct immitation of Bel Air or Take It Away or Little Johns or one of the hundred other incredible sandwich shops in that town, but inspired by the general sensibilities of all of them. So, here's what I did. (Also, Ezra complained that I haven't been blogging enough recipes/food related things lately. I realize he's probably the only person in the world who feels this way. But, here you go!)

First, I made some herbed mayo. Not just, adding herbs to mayo, but I made the actual mayonaise myself. It was really really delicious. Now I have a ton of it left and have been concocting a special potato salad recipe in my mind since last night. Anyhow, here's my herbed mayo recipe: 

Add to food processor: 

• 2 eggs
• Juice of about half a lemon (maybe a little less)
• About a 1/2 tablespoon of dijon mustard (I didn't measure, just gave it a good squeeze)
• About half a handful (a hearty pinch... a tear or two... again, I didn't measure, I just eyeballed it) of each of the following fresh herbs: basil, dill, chives, parsley
• About a teaspoon or so of each of: cayenne pepper, salt, pepper

Mix those all together; then once they're all integrated, slowly add a cup of oil (I mixed some of this stuff with some good olive oil; most recipes just call for vegetable oil) to the running food processor. Refrigerate. It'll be good for a couple days. 

Once I had my fancy herbed mayo, I spread that on each side of a sliced baguette. I put thick cut slices of havarti, long cut pieces of cucumber, mashed avacado (I used a little of the herb mayo to help make the avacado mashing a bit easier), good quality deli turkey, and broccoli sprouts (I think they're a little tastier than alphalfa sprouts). And you know what? It was a damn good sandwich, almost as pleasing as one purchased in a gourmet gas station in the 'ville. If somebody else had made it for me (because sandwiches always taste better when someone else makes them for you, just like eggs), I might have fallen in love with it a little bit.