The taste of travel
When I visited a friend in Indiana a few years ago
– my first trip to the Midwest – she had a list of things we
could do during my stay. At least three-quarters of that list were
places we could eat.
The taste of travel
When I visited a friend in Indiana a few years ago – my first trip to the Midwest – she had a list of things we could do during my stay. At least three-quarters of that list were places we could eat.
We went to a pizza parlor that made thin-crust wheat pizza and served salads with a basil dressing. We stopped at Ritter’s for frozen custard and I have to admit I couldn’t tell the difference between that and plain old ice cream. My favorite place turned out to be Steak ‘n Shake, a fast food restaurant that serves something called a sippable sundae. The banana split sippable sundae is a banana-flavored shake with sundae toppings on the top of it. Delicious. On the most recent trip to Indiana earlier this summer, we stopped there twice.
When I travel, whether on vacation or an extended stay overseas for school, people always ask about the food first thing. I can say pizza in Ireland isn’t any good. And never, ever try Mexican food in Cape Town, South Africa. They don’t know what tortilla chips are.
But each place has its culinary high points – even for someone who doesn’t eat seafood in places surrounded by water. In Ireland, I skipped the fish, but I loved the chips (French fries) with a bit of salt and malt vinegar sprinkled on them. Not to mention the Cadbury Break, a hot chocolate mix that beats anything available in the United States. And in Cape Town, I had the best macadamia nut chicken ever, and a staple called melee pop which is a kind of corn mush served with a tomato-based sauce.
And its not just me that marks my journeys by the foods I’ve eaten. A coworker recently returned from a vacation back East and the first words out of his mouth were about the piles of seafood he had eaten and a cracker-thin pizza at an authentic Italian restaurant.
Food is something that can comfort us when we are far away from home, and on busy vacations it often offers the only chance to relax and put our feet up for few minutes. And often on vacations, we allow ourselves to eat things we might normally forgo.
That’s certainly the case for me and the Monte Cristo sandwich. The first time I tried a Monte Cristo sandwich – a deep fried, oozing cheesy ham and turkey sandwich served with jam and sprinkled with powdered sugar – I was on vacation at Disneyland. The only time I’ve ever eaten a Monte Cristo sandwich since is when I am on vacation at Disneyland.
The thing with food is that we don’t have to wait until we are back somewhere to recapture the tastes. We can always experiement at home. That’s what I did this weekend with a grilled Monte Cristo sandwich that combines the flavors of my vacation favorite without the deep frying.
The typical Monte Cristo recipe calls for a thick egg bread, such as Challah bread, but because we forewent the batter dip for a light egg wash on our sandwich we settled for a thick-sliced sourdough bread and a honey wheat bread. We also added a second cheese so family members who didn’t like Swiss could have something else.
Grilled Monte Cristo
¼ lb. black forest ham
¼ lb. honey roasted turkey
½ lb. Gruyere cheese
½ lb. Havarti cheese
¼ c. Dijon mustard (optional)
1 loaf thick-sliced bread
3 eggs
splash of milk
fresh grated nutmeg
Powdered sugar to garnish
1 c. blackberry syrup or other fruit jam
Whisk together three eggs and milk. Grate fresh nutmeg into the egg mixture.
Spread mustard on inside of bread, if desired. Layer the bread with a slice of cheese of your choice, a slice of ham, a slice of turkey and then another slice of cheese. Put second piece of bread on top. The dip the sandwich in the egg mixture so both sides are lightly coated.
The sandwiches can be cooked on an indoor grill or a griddle. They will cook in 7 min. on an indoor grill that heats both sides of the bread. The bread may look cooked before the cheese is melted because of the thickness of the bread. Check to see if the cheese has melted before removing from the grill.
Sprinkle the sandwich with a light dusting of powdered sugar and serve with jam or syrup.
Makes four sandwiches.
