Seahawks (1-2) vs. Cooking (Hot Pastrami on Rye)
Last football season we taught ourselves to cook by preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks opponent. By the playoffs we had mastered the art of cooking, and in fact delivered a eulogy at what we thought was Julia Child's funeral.
This fall we are going to do it again.
Our first city is New York, home of the World Champion 1969 Jets.
Because they let any foreigner who wants just squeeze into their city, New York is home to a large amount of culinary options.
We are choosing the chosen ones. New York is the media capital of the world, so it only makes sense that the place is teeming with Jews (save your emails, we can half-make these jokes, you tea tip-sipping limey, we can also half-make those jokes, you over-sensitive 100% WASPy asshat).
Out of the city's Jewish culture came the New York delicatessens, the world's most famous being the Carnegie and Katz's, and the least popular being Tehran's Katzenberg's Zionist Reign Deli.
Not including Paul Rudd, New York delicatessens may be the greatest contribution to the planet by the Jewish people.
The staple of any of these delicatessens is their pastrami on rye, we think. Actually, we grew up in Green Lake (or is it Greenlake?) and have no idea what we're talking about. For a while we lived close to Canter's in L.A., but we mostly went there to see celebrities and work with the Minute Men to round up illegal immigrants in the kitchen (won't you take a few minutes to donate).
We thought about making the pastrami; however, that probably involves having sex with a pig, so we are going to make the rye bread instead.
There is a science to rye bread, something about the biochemistry of amylases and pentosans. We're not sure if this is from some high level class at the Culinary Institute of America that they don't let the football players take. It just confused us.
The last thing we need is confusion, as this will be our first attempt at bread making. Twice before we have made dough, once we were successful, the other time well, borrowing the words of Lou Piniella following last night's loss to the Dodgers, "It wasn't fun to watch, I'll tell you that."
The recipe takes a few hours over the span of like two days, unfortunately that gives us plenty of time to screw things up [knock on wood]. The easiest part looks like adding the caraway seeds, a key ingredient in Jewish rye.
This whole sandwich is going to be an ethnic coming together for our family. Like our mother, rye bread was introduced into England by the Danes. Pastrami, like our special touch friend, is Turkish in origin, and well, the recipe we're using calls for room temperature beer, so check on her Irish front.
Maybe we'll skip the holidays and just hang out with rye bread. What’s that? It wants to play Monopoly after dinner, never mind.
If we still use American money on Sunday, we will buy sauerkraut, Russian dressing, and pastrami to put in the "middle area." We probably won't buy enough meat to make a sandwich like this.
We'll report back on Monday, and if you think you're so fucking great why not try and make the stuff as well. Then we can all compare notes as our fathers stare at us disapprovingly.
