Update (Apr 2023): Posts like these have moved to my new food-focused newsletter at
After gaining new appreciation for cooking and food this past year, I’ve been looking for ways to document what I’m learning and feeling (in a less fleeting way than Instagram Stories). Hence “Meal Memoirs”! I hope to write these regularly, since I plan to keep eating good stuff ;) Starting it off with something simple…
I haven’t made a sandwich with any regularity since freshman year of college, when I was desperate for easy and relatively cheap lunch ideas. It only lasted a couple of months because it got old fast (the smell that still takes me back to those days isn’t that of cold turkey or tomatoes but of Ziploc bags).
It’s not really fair to those sandwiches though because I was clueless yet didn’t feel like I could spare any time on learning how to make less-sad-food. I didn’t know a sandwich could taste so much better if I toasted the bread. I didn’t give any thought to dressings or sauces (which would also cost more obviously). I moved on from sandwiches and never bothered to try again.
Until recently, which would be 12 years later and the 14th month of working from home, when something less familiar was never more welcome. To be honest, all it took was walking past Costco’s cold cuts aisle to feel inspired to make a sandwich and then we just ran with it. We’ve had sandwich lunches at least eight times in May (first with turkey, then roast beef) and it was so good and filling each time.
What went into the sandwiches —
The basics:
Whole grain bread
Lettuce
Tomato
Onion
Roast turkey or beef
A few bells & whistles I definitely didn’t have in college but have been enjoying this time around:
Alfalfa sprouts
Avocado
Sambal oelek
Thanks for reading and have a great week ~