New Sandwich

As a vegetarian who LOVES sandwiches and MISSES pastrami, let me tell you that a new sandwich creation always floats my boat. I refuse to go to Subway (the commercials alone with that dreadful man would put me off) and get the cheese 'n veggies option, I loathe black bean burgers (the vegetarian staple of most restaurants who are too je ne sais quos to serve Gardenburgers), and I'm sick to death of the following: the ubiquitous portobello burger, hummus and roasted red peppers, and [ta-DAAAA!] the ever-available Garden or Boca Burgers.

Since these are the commonest sandwich options for vegetarians and I hate them, it's up to me to find new ways of making two slices of bread very, very happy. One I made up last night:

Dark sour rye, toasted
Butter, melted on the toast [well, it's Earth Balance, actually, which I prefer]
Sliced tomatoes
Dill weed
Red pepper flakes

Heavenly...

Any sandwich options from your kitchens, my dears? Mention pastrami and I'll stuff a Subway 12" right up your butt.

Cerise

Crazy Week

This week marks my first set of performances with the Seattle Symphony Chorale. And they don't mess around - performance weeks, including final rehearsals and the performances themselves, chew up and spit out nearly every evening from now until Sunday. But I'm not complaining - we're doing the ENTIRE Messiah this week, five times. With a proper symphony and a disciplined choir in an enormous and very grand symphony hall. Nerves jumpin'... Old nags in the chorale tell me that the first combined rehearsal with the chorale, the symphony and the great hall always makes all the newbies cry, so little Cerise will bring hankies, believe you me. We normally rehearse with just the choir with (brilliant) piano accompaniment in a rented hall elsewhere in the city. So I've never sung with the symphony, never been in Benaroya Hall, and never met the Maestro conducting us. That all changes this week. [dear God, please don't let me screw up] If you know me at all, you know that my transparency - readily obvious on this blog - extends into my real life. Which means my screwups are usually loud, magnificent and very public. If only spectacular public humiliation was a market commodity, because to be honest it doesn't even bother me that much.

Cerise