Six years of proving myself, watching from afar, lobbying to show the world what I can do. Six years of seeing journeymen take the coveted “sausage sandwich” role on the Linkery menu. Six years of knowing I could do better.
Don’t get me wrong, those other sandwiches were fine, good even. I really liked Hand Roll. He had style, compactness, freshness, originality. And the others were quite nice — the link on the split roll with grilled peppers, the recent one with the split link on the bun (a little bit of Hamburg envy, I thought, and kept my mouth shut and waited my turn).
But I ask you: were these sandwiches worthy of being the feature bread-encased delicacy of the best sausage restaurant you can think of, the farm-to-table temple of handcrafted wurstmaking? I think you know the answer, and that answer was no.
They knew it too. And today, I finally got the call.
Here’s the deal. There are plenty of very good sausage sandwiches out there, and even some (like Hand Roll, I do miss that dude, I mean, I could tell you some stories) that have everything you’d think you would want in a sausage sandwich: hand-made link from the finest, small-farm meat, a house-baked bun, and a nice, seasonally flavored house-made mustard.
But there’s one thing that sandwiches like this don’t have, will never have, that I’ve got coming out of my pores.
That thing is M to the A-O to the N to the NAYZ.
May. O. Nnaise.
As in, the yolks of pastured chicken eggs lovingly whipped into an emulsion with their one true love: sublime, unctuous oil. And a little lemon juice and some salt.
To be clear: we are not talking here about plain vanilla ordinary Better than Best Foods. ‘Cause if there’s one addition that makes mayonnaise better, what is it? Pork. Specifically, little teeny bits of pork trotter meat from organic Becker Lane Berkshire breed pork, blended INTO the mayonnaise. I’m just sayin’, crack subscribes to this mayonnaise’s blog.
Such is the thing about which we are talking. Hand Roll never dreamed of days like these.
Yeah, that’s me. I ain’t goin’ nowhere, as they say. A handcrafted link of your choice, hand-made, house baked roll (shaped like me, shaped around me, no Hamburg-loving circular bunznitch on this plate), some seasonally appropriate garnishes, a couple chips, and OHHH – did I mention the pork trotter mayo? Good, I wasn’t sure. Worth a couple million easily, but I’ll visit your table for twelve bucks.
If you’re willing to top off the scrilla a bit, I’ll even bring a couple friends along in my bun — slice of house made bacon, and a topping of Spring Hill chedda, if you know what I mean. That’s how I roll.
I don’t spit game, I spit the truth. I am the best sausage sandwich in the world. You wanna throw down? Bring your sesame seed rolls, your vinegar-based condiments, all your best onion friends.
I will dominate all comers.
this was an amazing post.
I thought you could go no further in extreme sandwiching but….a pork sausage sandwich topped with pork-laced condiments? You are truly the best kind of evil genius!!!!
Maybe an infusion of pork bits would be just the thing that would tempt my hubby to eat mayo. Or not. But the sandwich sounds divine.
I appreciate:
1) adding mayonnaise to anything.
2) Alison’s use of sandwich as a verb.
I like the linkery and all, but this has nothing on Hot Doug’s daily specials