ACBN Friday #293: Workin' for the Weekend
A Big Dumb Sandwich, a terrific cocktail, great new music and local celebrities headline a long-weekend ACBN Friday
May is my favorite month of the year, hands down.
That said, this May—at least so far—has left me rather exhausted. I’ve had some lengthy work-related travel, a bunch of end-of-school-year stuff for my kids, and the weather’s been intermittently dreary and/or severe. It’s sapped a lot of the energy I would normally expect to have this time of year. Heck, I don’t have a book recommendation in today’s newsletter largely because every time I had a window to sit down and read this week, I simply fell asleep.
(I can heartily recommend sleep, even if I never get enough of it.)
I’m looking forward to this weekend as a tipping point, though.
Today is my kids’ last day of school for the year, and it’s also my wife’s last day at her current job. I’m the only person in our household who isn’t having a major change this weekend, but that’s okay: the fact that it’s a three-day weekend is more than enough for me.
Friends, it’s Friday at The Action Cookbook Newsletter.
You might already be gearing up (or gearing down?) for the long holiday weekend, but if you need a little boost, I’ve got some great stuff ahead for you today, including:
- Another of my periodic forays into Big Dumb Sandwich mode
- A killer cocktail in commemoration of my completing an orbit of the sun
- Great music, lively discussion, a brief anti-AI rant, pets, and more!
We don’t have to be us ‘til Tuesday. Let’s hit it.
Once again I must embrace the Big Dumb Sandwich
Periodically, I find myself possessed of the notion to make a Big Dumb Sandwich.
It might be my single favorite genre of food, if we can count it as a distinct category. A Big Dumb Sandwich is a canvas on which I can indulge my basest culinary urges. Freed from the need to cater to anyone else’s tastes, I can focus simply on cramming as much of the Stuff I Like between two pieces of bread as humanely possible.
It’s something that’s played out in these pages a number of times before:
Scott Hines
Scott Hines
Scott Hines
Scott Hines
Scott Hines
Well, the notion struck once again.
I spent the better part of last week on the road for my day job, punchlisting a building that’s nearing completion. I was on the road and with coworkers, and that meant that my diet consisted almost entirely of Starbucks, Panera and the one good restaurant in the small town we were in. When I returned home last Friday, my wife and kids already had plans to get pizza, and that allowed me to make up for lost cooking time.
I’d been kicking around wanting to do something along the lines of a Chopped Cheese, the Bronx bodega special that’s become widely-known and often-imitated in recent years. I settled on a Korean-inspired riff on it—mixing up a bulgogi-style sauce to put with ground beef and cheese, and chopping up kimchi and scallions straight into it all.
It’s not authentically anything—heck, it might be an affront to the cuisines of both Korea and the Bronx—but it was delicious.
Bulgogi-Style Chopped Cheese
(Makes 4)
