Ham sandwiches

Last weekend, I organized a party for the residents in my dorm. Perhaps I was a bit optimistic when I ordered food for 75. I'd say that around 50 people came and went throughout the evening. Anyway, among the dishes I ordered was cold cuts. What a disaster! The pan-fried dumplings, cheesecake, and sushi were very popular choices, but the guests barely touched the spinach and feta cheese pastries and cold cuts.

Needless to say, I have a lot of leftovers on my hands. Two pounds of sliced ham! And what can I do with sliced ham? Make ham sandwiches, of course.

It just occurred to me that I haven't eaten sandwiches regularly in years. Believe it or not, I brought a ham sandwich to school every day from kindergarten to the final year of my Masters degree. By my calculation, that's 18.5 years of schooling. In other words, I've probably eaten more than 3500 ham sandwiches in my life. I'm sure I brought tuna sandwiches and egg salad sandwiches sometimes too, but for the most part, most of the sandwiches I consumed were ham sandwiches. And believe it or not, I'm not sick of ham sandwiches.

I'm a bit embarrassed to say that my mom usually made lunch for me. I remember making lunch for myself during my high school years, but for some reason, my mom started making lunch for me again during university. I actually enjoyed making my lunch the night before school. It was simple enough to spread mayo or salad dressing on sliced bread, to slap on a couple of slices of ham, and maybe sliced sweet pickles too (better than dill). Sometimes, when my mom couldn't control herself and bought tomatoes in bulk volumes, she coerced me to add sliced tomato to my sandwich. I hated this, not only because tomato makes bread very soggy, but because raw tomato seems to make the inside of my stomach itchy. I always fell asleep in class after eating raw tomato. I sometimes added lettuce, but my mom usually bought iceberg lettuce, which really isn't appropriate for making sandwiches - it's too thick and too watery, and it's difficult to find flat leaves. Romaine is probably best. And when ham wasn't cheap or when we were low on ham, I sometimes added a slice of processed cheese to my sandwich. Sliced processed cheese is annoying because it's too salty and too small to fit sliced bread, making the centre of my sandwiches too salty and the crust flavourless.

As much as I like sandwiches, I rarely order them at restaurants. Why should I pay $10 for something I can easily make myself? But as I grew older, I've learned of sandwiches I've never eaten before. The "Reuben", for one, is a kick-ass sandwich I probably wouldn't make on my own. Not only are corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and rye bread not widely available, but it's also troublesome to pan-fry the sauerkraut. Hmm.. to come to think of it, it's probably not that hard to make a Reuben., and that stuff really isn't hard to find.

Anyway, I've almost finished eating my two pounds of sliced ham. I'll be sure to savour the last bite of my last ham sandwich.