KITCHEN ADVENTURES: I AM AWESOME TODAY. At least in the kitchenette!

For lunch I had soccas again. This time they were thin, fried brown and crispy in a thin slick of olive oil. I mixed the chickpea flour and water with a ginger-sesame vinaigrette thing; minced garlic; minced ginger; minced jalapeno; chopped button mushroom; cumin, salt, and garam masala. On the side I made a yogurt-cucumber-cilantro sauce. Then a big glass of whole milk, because why not.

For dinner I had two sandwiches: hot and cold. They were otherwise identical except that the hot sandwich also had thinly-sliced jalapeno, and the cold sandwich had sliced Persian cucumber.

Both sandwiches were on halves of a mealhada roll. I spread the bottoms of the roll halves with wasabi mayonnaise (left over from a visit to Black and Orange, the burger place on CT Ave which used to be Rogue States, and by the way that place is terrific) and layered tomato, onion, cilantro, roast beef, an awesome black-pepper cheese that was on sale at Whole Foods, and the top of the mealhada roll. The hot sandwich got wrapped in aluminum foil and baked at 375 for 15 minutes. I ate the cold sandwich while I was waiting for the hot one to be ready.

Everything I have just described to you was fantastic. Today I have eaten like a queen. I thought the sandwiches might have too many conflicting flavors, but I was wrong–everything worked perfectly. Each bite was great! They were both really messy, though, so have some napkins or paper towels on hand.