The World's Greatest Sandwich

For those of you who don’t know, my father is a man of many talents. From humble beginnings in a midwestern fish-processing plant, to a body shop owner (on the front cover of Hot Rod Magazine, once or twice), to a computer repair technician, to data recovery technician, to digital forensics expert—one of the easiest talents of his to appreciate is his skills as a cook.

My one-way ticket to China is now only 16 days away, so I told my dad that I would like one last taste of a special sandwich—the Monte Cristo. This is one of many amazing recipes he learned during his tenure as a cook long ago at Grandma’s Saloon & Deli in my hometown of Duluth, Minnesota. The sandwich is pretty simple: ham, turkey, and cheese on a triple-decker of cream cheese-lathered Texas toast—all egg-washed and breaded in a graham cracker crust before being deep-fried. It is served with a sour cream-based raspberry sauce for dipping.

It is the best sandwich in the world, as far as I’m concerned. However, it’s not for the faint of heart (i.e. it probably causes their hearts to stop), so we (try to) eat one of these no more than once a year.

It’s major annual events like The Eating of the Monte Cristo Sandwiches that remind me that I’m about to leave Idaho behind for a long time, and with it all the places, people, and things of my childhood. But despite the fact that my room has been cleared of nearly everything that I own, and the white walls are now pocked with the many holes where my guitars used to hang, the realization that I’m moving to China has not really set in, yet. That could be simply because my daily life has otherwise remained much the same as it was before I packed everything I own into six medium boxes (excepting the guitars, of course).

At this point, there’s no turning back. The flight tickets have been purchased, the visa has been approved, and EF English First is awaiting my arrival in Beijing on the 8th of February. I will go there to work as an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher for the next year.

I’m looking forward to the coming adventure, but meanwhile, I’ll just continue fiddling around with this blog, and playing guitar, and learning how to use Linux (maybe I’ll even bore some readers with stuff on that). My plan is to post more frequently in the coming few days before I level out my output so I can play ketchup with all the things going on in my head.

Oh, and, I’ll be tweaking the design of this blog to be more friendly to people who want to roam around this tiny website of mine (links!).