What Fits

I’m right handed, he’s left.  It was one of the first things my mother noticed about Bill the day she met him.  As he signed his name, with love, on my grandmother’s 90th birthday card, my mom looked at me with a smile and said, “He’s left handed.”  Almost my whole family writes with their right hand.  From my sister to my father to my grandparents.  My aunts, my uncles, my cousins; every one of us is right handed.  But my mom?  Well, my mom is left.

“Hmm.”  I remember thinking. “I guess he is left handed.” 

I had known Bill six months at the time and I’d never noticed.  It had either never occurred to me, or just never mattered.  But right then, in that moment, with my mom seeing someone else writing the same way she did, and knowing that this person would one day join our family, I knew… Bill fit.   

Now when Bill and I work together, I stand to his right side, he stands to my left.  And it fits.  We assemble each sandwich by him loading on the bacon as I toss on the cheese.  He lays out the tomatoes as I drizzle on the sauce.  I grab one thing on the right, and he grabs another on the left, and it fits.  Any other combination; two lefties, two righties, if I were a lefty and he were a righty, wouldn’t work.  We’d both be reaching for the lettuce with no one grabbing for the onions.  Our lines would be crossed and our sandwiches would be tangled.  Where would we be then? 

One day, when Melt Sandwich Shops line the streets like Starbucks’ (insert ™ or © or ®  here… don’t sue me, Starbucks :), Bill and I won’t be the only one’s assembling our intricate sandwiches.  We’ll have a team of highly trained professionals that know to grab the broccoli rabe with their left hand and the slow roasted tomatoes with their right.   Because for us, well... that’s just what fits.

What's New: The Snowstorm

Good evening Melty's!

Noo don't you worry... there is not another snowstorm on the horizon... we're just keeping y'all up to date with our next and newest sandwich combo of the week!  This one will make its debut on Monday, and trust me when I say, you don't wanna miss it.  We named it "The Snowstorm" with the assumption that February would be dumping just as much of that white stuff on us as the lovely month of January did.  After serious deliberation on changing it's name, we decided to let the name stay with the hopes that the only snowstorm we'll be experiencing from here on out this year will be on our sandwiches!

This combo has Bill's mouth watering horseradish sauce, Muenster cheese, and sweet caramelized white onions.  We recommend it with the Aged Beef Top Round or the Beef Brisket, but it also pairs up nicely with the daily fish, rosemary dijon pork loin, grilled portobello or the grilled chicken breast.

Here it is in all it's tastiness, covering the ancho chile brown sugar brisket, tucked nicely in a whole wheat flat bread:

Stop by next week and give it a try!

Eat well!
Melt

Never Underestimate the Power of... American Cheese

American Cheese.  It is so quintessentially...well... American.  It's something I would guarantee every single one of us has peeled right from it's clingy clear plastic wrapper and eaten, straight up.  And of course, there's the sandwiches it creates.  I challenge anyone out there to say that you don't love an ooey gooey grilled cheese coated in butter and dripping with that yellow melty goodness every now and again.  Sure it's not the best choice to keep within that steamed vegetable and leafy green diet, but you knoow it's good!  

One of our customers actually refuses to eat his grilled cheese with anything other than our yellow american.  Like a fine wine that's turned murky, he'll take one look at bread containing white cheese and, without hesitation, back to us it comes. 

2,000 calories later, this is now gone.

I too adore a good grilled cheese.  However, for some reason in the past year and a half that we've been open, I had yet to eat one with yellow American.  What's more, I had yet to eat anything with American.  Bill is a huge cheese lover and has stocked our menu full of cheeses.  Aged Vermont White Cheddar, Emmentaler Swiss (with the really big holes no less), Sharp Provolone, Gruyere, Fresh Whole Milk Mozzarella, Feta, Gorgonzola, Crumbled Bleu... the list goes on. So, every day for the past year and a half I've made my own sandwiches with one of these 'superior' cheeses.     

That is... until yesterday.  

It started with my serious case of sandwich envy.  Each day I write down customers' orders and watch as Bill constructs their sandwiches.  But, it is that moment they come out from under the fire that makes me need that sandwich.  The aroma as it flies by my nose on it's way to be wrapped, the look of the sauce bubbling up combining with the cheese, surrounding the late addition of lettuce... Mmm MMM!  That sandwich will be mine. Yesterday one came out spilling over with American Cheese.  It looked good. It looked REALLY good.  I had to make my own.  After one bite I vowed never to underestimate the power of this cheese again.  It brought me back.  Back to school days where my mom packed my lunch with the cookies strategically hidden underneath the American cheese and turkey sandwich, back to summer afternoons making open faced tomato and melted american cheeses in my aunt's kitchen.  Back to fun times surrounded by family.  And a cheese that can do that, well, I don't blame our 7 year old customer.  He knows there's just nothing that compares to that look, that texture, that meltiness, and that unmistakable taste of Yellow American Cheese.  

And that right there is a power to be reckoned with.