Sunday, January 14, 2018

Mom's Vulgar Little Sandwich

I just came home after a morning out at church and the annual meeting at church.  I had planned to go from there to the Old Last House, which is about an hour to the north, but these last three days of wild weather (snow, thaw + melt, followed by subzero temperatures) had left many treacherous stretches on Vt Route 100.

I got as far as the Morrisville Price Chopper and decided to retreat back home after provisioning a bit.

There's nothing more pure as a Vermont experience than the Morrisville Price Chopper at noon on a freezing, bright sunny Sunday in January.  We, the rubber-booted, ball-capped, fat coated (or no coated) shoppers of northern Lamoille County were a Vermont reality that doesn't get into the brochures. It was all bad hair, cheap clothes, dry skin, all highlighted by the supermarket lighting. No.  We were not Vermont life material - maybe not even open casket material - but we are the reality. A bit of a sad one.

My daughter, who turns twenty years old today and who now lives in Montreal, has a complicated relationship with Morrisville.  She grew up in the vicinity and she likes the Chinese buffet and the McDonalds (blessedly, for her purposes, there's a drive-thru).

I bought things that were on sale and drove home carefully. The sun was doing its thing for route 100, but icy stretches will need  I came in and made a vulgar little sandwich.

I had this particular sandwich in mind as I passed up the McDonald's in Morrisville.

I had bought the "Buffalo chicken breast" deli meat that my son likes in preparation for the storm (at the Shaws in Waterbury - happier place to shop). In the Price Chopper I added some American cheese, though at least this was made in Vermont. I skipped the 99 cent version of near-American cheese food slices, so I guess it could have been worse.  I had a loaf of "hearty white" waiting on the counter - another concession to my son. I'm not sure what made it "hearty."  It looked like the white bread of my childhood.  Not an artisanal molecule - except maybe the Polish mustard by husband brought from Montreal.

I will use the Uber Eats app on my phone shortly to send my daughter something from a middle eastern restaurant in her neighborhood for her birthday.  I'm sorry not to be seeing her today but I'm glad she's up there.