When things are quiet around here, one of two things are usually happening: I’m busy with a side project or traveling far from the physical Smitten Kitchen. Or, I’m really obsessed with eating something that I don’t expect to interest anyone but me. This month we have two for two. For the three weeks before I was briefly in San Francisco and Napa last week, I was absolutely fixated on this sandwich. Fixated! I craved it everyday. Sometimes it was breakfast; sometimes it was lunch. I could walk by a bagel shop wafting with warm everything seeds, by a cloud of bodega bacon egg and cheese sandwiches, and still beeline home to put a cold boiled egg on a roll with arugula. I know I make no sense. I decided to keep this weirdo thing myself but then I returned from California and yes, I had a suitcase full of Model Bakery english muffins and a stash of Dandelion Chocolate hot chocolate mix, and I still just needed this. I have finally accepted that the only way to move on, at least for long enough that I could tackle the rest of the amazing things I have on our cooking agenda for the summer, was to exorcise it, whether anyone cares to join in my strange little preoccupation or not.

Read more »