The workmates I was chatting with online were astonished. "Why would you do that?" asked one. "Dude, there is a reason Thanksgiving is in the fall..." opined another.
"I didn't really have a choice," I explained. "My Safeway is closing and turkeys were 89 cents a pound, and Glory had just mentioned the week before how much she loves the turkey and brie sandwiches I make every time we have turkey leftovers.
"And with her needing food for her 36-hour train trip to Churchill on Sunday..." well, no more really needed to be said at that point.
Three of us head out to Hudson Bay SK tomorrow, my third visit, but the first time dropping someone off. Glory will isolate while helping to prep the Tundra Inn hotel for tourists this summer, and Fenya will join her in two weeks' time.
So! Road sandwiches are needed for tomorrow and trainwiches for the day after that. The turkey cooked up a treat in the Look bag (juicy and tender in 3.25 hours? fuhgeddaboutit) and I went shopping last night to grab the last few ingredients. There was a bit of bacon leftover from our pancake breakfast this morning so I baked that up and cooked up a bit of instant stuffing as well. All was in readiness to produce 3.25 linear feet of sandwiches.
After slicing the baguettes and laying them out, I butter them and add mayonnaise - regular for half the trainwiches and hickory mayo for the rest. The margarine is there to make the ticker parts of bread more palatable but it also serves as a bit of moisture barrier, since the majority of these sandwiches won't be eaten for another 36 hours or so. I had the chipotle aioli out too but abandoned it when I decided I couldn't be bothered with the labelling this would necessitate.
Next step was adding the lettuce (more moisture barrier and a bit of texture, plus, you know - yay veg) and a bit of bacon. I'm usually too lazy to cook bacon for these purposes, but in the past I have added some prosciutto in the same place.
This was followed by the addition of a touch of whole berry cranberry sauce. In the future I might put this directly on the bread, but I think this is better in terms of bread integrity anyhow. We have also used mango chutney at this stage and it is amazing. I also added stuffing to the roadwich baguette as I believe it adds a savoury note and makes the whole thing more festive, but Glory is not that into stuffing.
Then the turkey! Honestly, I might have liked wider pieces here, but you work with what you've got. I try to mix up the light and dark meat a little, but again, the breast meat is moist enough it works fine on its own. A little bit of smoked salt and fresh cracked black pepper and we are entering the home stretch.
The brie component is due in no small part to a bacon and brie baguette I had in London Heathrow in 2005. It was my first time having brie outside of a cheese plate or combined with anything other than an expensive cracker and it blew my mind. We have used other cheeses as well, but usually only if brie is not available. Double or triple crème is advisable due to its greater height and resulting improvement in bread coverage - once again, Costco to the rescue.
The assembled sandwich is an imposing edifice, but sadly, must be sliced to allow for easier transport and tidier consumption. This can be tricky, and keeping the various components from breaching their carbohydrate casing requires both a compression stage as well as something I call the Cthulhu grip when cutting. Care must be taken with one's fingers splayed across the anterior face of the sandwich, out of line-of-sight but helping to confine slippery pieces of turkey. This focus did prevent me from losing a digit, but did result in my slicing my thumb open like an imbecile while it rested in plain sight.
In most instances, I will remove the dry crusty ends of the baguettes, but this time they were spongy enough and I had allowed enough fillings to reach them that I left them intact. Quartering the sandwiches allows them to fit in a standard-size zippered baggie...with a little bit of additional compression.
And there you have it - a yard-plus of turkey sandwiches, individually portioned and ready for travel. Five trainwiches go into a knotted grocery bag while a smaller one holds the three roadwiches for tomorrow.
Honestly, it is a bit more forethought and effort than hand food invented by an Earl to keep his fingers dry while gambling should ever require, but this sort of preparation makes road trips just a little bit easier to enjoy. And like I said, when it is a request from the offpsring you won't see for the rest of the summer, it is certainly worth it. And there is another bag of turkey in the freezer so I can do the same thing for Fenya in two weeks' time (and for her boyfriend who has graciously offered to drive her).
The last word from one of my workmates when discussing the sandwiches was "Stephen loves his girls more than I love, well, anybody,"
I know it's not true, but I am flattered that people recognize that important ingredient!
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