10.14.18
How to Transcend Time and Memory with Omi’s Egg Salad Sandwich
YIELD: 3 servings
TIME: 1 hour
Time travel has never been so delicious. Quell hunger, anxiety, loneliness and grief by transporting taste buds and desires back to simpler days, with either sunny or hazy skies but lungs always brimming with sweetness, stomach soothed by saltiness, tongue wet with tangy ache for yellow; yellow on door, yellow on fingers, yellow in throat, yellow in box. Relish in undiscovered tastes that piggyback onto nerve cells and then replace them. This recipe was born on December 3rd, 1924, in Hamburg, Germany, when a tiny crooked spine unfurled, ripened and began to breathe. The sandwiches are best fresh, but you may consume these words at any point in time.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 house, built in 1963, in Lexington, MA
- 1 German grandmother, called Omi
- 1 sister, five years older
- Two wooden stools
- 3 eggs
- ~2 cups of water
- A small pot with a lid
- 1 stovetop burner
- 1 medium bowl
- 1 metal egg slicer
- Hellman’s Mayonnaise
- Dijon Mustard
- Salt and Pepper
- 1 fork, 1 spoon
- 3 slices of sharp cheddar cheese
- 6 slices of white bread
- 3 grey Heath Pottery plates
PREPARATION:
1. Open eyes at 7 am on Saturday morning. Blink through the crusties, stretch toes towards the neighbor’s upstairs window, groan quietly, hop out of bed and slip on white bathrobe.
2. Descend the steps that lead downstairs, slower than a softly drifting balloon, dodging creaky spots, skipping seventh step, noiselessly plucking the balustrade, inflated with the illusion of grace and stealth.
3. Go into the kitchen and find Daddy in his green checkered bathrobe and morning hair. Give him a hug, and babble while he makes breakfast.
4. As he places the cream-cheesed and jellied toasts on the table, listen and let your mouth pop open when he says that today is Omi day; it is lunch at Omi’s with Sister. Feel your heartbeat quicken and belly churn, hungry for breakfast or perhaps for Omi’s tinkling “hoo-hoo!”
5. Spend the next several hours in anticipation. Brush hair, brush teeth, put on striped sweater, blue jeans, blue sneakers. Tie laces with exactitude.
6. At 10:35 am, stand ready at the kitchen door, back straight and foot tapping like a general about to wage war. Daddy waits nearby.
7. At 10:47 am, inquire “What is taking so long!!” of Mama and Sister.
8. At 10:53 am, stomp to the car with Mama, Daddy and Sister. Hop into the backseat. Fasten seatbelt as the key in the ignition turns.
9. In the 12 minutes it takes to drive to Omi’s house, try to experiment with eyesight. Look out the window without letting your eyes catch on anything. Let the red and yellow leaves run together, in the same way that water and paint do when they collide on special paper. Then, try to catch everything, eyes moving left and right until it hurts to the point of satisfaction. The outdoor canvas has been seen, ingested, felt and forgotten, but imprinted into your retina.
10. Once your eyes start to hurt, switch to breath experiments. Watch the road, peaking between the two front seats and, whenever a bump approaches, hold air tightly in your lungs until the disturbance passes. This is a practice of protection, a forcefield of breath, control, calm, whoosh.
11. Play with breath until the black “81” on a silver mailbox appears on the left side of Pleasant St. and Daddy makes the sharp turn into the long driveway. Exhale relief of arrival. Unclick the seatbelt and get yelled at by Mama because the car is still moving. When the key turns to the left and the engine quiets, it is ok to jump out. Exit on the right because the driveway is slanted (closing the door uphill is no easy task).
12. Run up the driveway, looking at the big kitchen window where Omi waits between the cream-colored curtains, laughing and waving at the approaching fury of legs, autumn jackets, and braided mops of hair.
13. Smash into the basement door, simultaneously turning the knob. Tumble into the boiler room, letting the musty, cedar, clean laundry warmth hit you harder than the white wooden panel. Notice Opa’s toolbox and wonder whether a piece of him still breathes in there. Or here or anywhere. Whether Omi can inhale or hold it.
14. Dash through the art room, past the plastic-covered table, allowing Sister to pass while bounding up the stairs. Land in a pile of arms, filling your lungs with the worst, most pungent, loveliest smell on the planet that can only be purchased in the women’s perfume section at Filene’s. Receive countless coral kisses, also purchased at Filene’s. Groan and wipe them away but secretly soak them in, keeping them for later.
15. Wave goodbye to parents from the big kitchen window. Watch Mama’s smile expand from under the wide-brimmed hat down to her fingertips, clasped in Daddy’s hand. Listen for the sound of leaves under tires, for silence, for confirmation that it is now just Omi and her Mädchen.
16. Tug on the embroidered sleeves of your fragrant 4’9” heroine and ask her important questions, such as, “What’re we making today? What’re we eating? What’re we doing??” to which Omi might answer with a giggle, her voice high-pitched with a little rasp that only Riccola cough drops can appease. She may sing, “Wait and see, my darling! First, we start with the eggs!” and immediately the fight for the egg slicer begins, which is just as quickly quelled by a clucking of the tongue, a laugh, and “Lovelies, we’ll each get to do one.”
17. Take three eggs from the fridge, as instructed by Omi, and place them into the little pot that Sister is holding. Blanket the eggs with tap water. Cover them with a lid, allowing for a soft, melodic clank, and place the pot onto the electric stovetop, which only Omi can touch. Watch her set the heat to high. Now wait.
18. Ask Omi if she’s seen any chipmunks today. Any turkeys? Has she heard the owl recently? Do the sparrows need feeding? “All my little friends are doing well,” she replies. “We can feed them later if we have the time.” She winks.
19. As little bubbles begin to form around the eggs, think about the small, brown-and-white-speckled birds that dot the burgundy wood railings on the porch and sometimes visit Omi’s hand, full of seed (when she’s lucky and holds still). Imagine how it must feel to be that bird, so tiny, landing on a hand whose magic is incomprehensible to you. Feel lucky to be a human, to have a hand that can hold hers, a brain that can recognize her talent, and skin that can drink up her splendor.
20. The second that the water comes to a full boil, watch as Omi shuts the heat off and tells Sister to set the little white kitchen timer for eight minutes. “Tick tock, tick tock!” We must be patient.
21. Pull out one tall stool from under the counter; Sister pulls out the other. Press soft, blue-jeaned bums into the smoothed, ringed wood. Hook feet around the sturdy legs. Think about how many rings the old tree out front must have, about the rusting horse shoe stuck to its trunk. The horse is now a ghost, the rider only imagined. Visualize Daddy climbing that same tree as a boy, marveling at that same horse shoe, hearing that same tinkling laugh radiate through the yellow door.
22. Ask as many questions as you can – more are always wished for in retrospect. Swallow the answers for an appetizer. Push them deep within, store in veins.
23. When the timer goes off, jolt your bum from the stool in a start. Watch as Omi carefully drains the hard-boiled eggs and places them into a soothing bowl of ice water. After a few more patient minutes, once the precious orbs are temperate, remove and place them onto a paper towel. Allow Omi to demonstrate how to break each one. Light little taps all over—dances choreographed across the counter—until the eggshell is reminiscent of crazed ceramics and begins to scatter, pirouetting away. Then, work fingers under the sharp edges, carefully peeling back the hard exterior to discover the glossy, plush meat within. Do not work with too much haste – unwrap the egg like it’s fine china swathed in gold paper, gliding it carefully from its sheath, preventing any nicks and gouges.
24. One by one, place each egg into the metal slicer. First, slice vertically, then horizontally, creating tiny little prisms of yellow and white, which then must be dumped into a small/medium bowl. Omi does the first one, Sister does second. Treat the third and last egg like fine potter’s clay. Watch the tiny blades press against the white exterior until the skin gives, allowing the metal to edge crisply towards the yolk, a solid yet soft sun center, and pass through to meet the opaque belly once more.
25. In the bowl, the prismed egg is like confetti. It is a celebration, about to be doused in tang and viscous love. There are no exact measurements for mayo and mustard because this must be done by feel, by intuition of the wrist and spoon. The fork is DJ, mixing until people are elated and satisfied. Add a large plop or two of mayo, a small splat or so of mustard, a smidgeon of salt and pepper. Stir and taste until tongues ignite and sighs are detonated.
26. Place six slices of white bread (purchased down the road at Wilson Farm) along the counter in a 2 x 3 grid. Spread a little mayo lightly on three of them; put a slice of cheddar on top of the mayonnaised bread. Then, scoop the egg salad onto the other three slices, blanketing the naked pieces in light yellow goodness, evenly dolloping across each slice. No complaints or fighting happen at this stage; it’s too precious. When the cheesed slices meet the egged, anticipation approaches an all-time high.
27. Watch, with lips wet, eyes wide, as Omi cuts each sandwich in half, portioning two rectangles per plate. Collect three napkins and bring them to the dining table. Fold them into triangles and lay them on pink placemats. Splash cranberry juice into small apple-shaped glasses from the tall cupboard; set them on the top right of the placemats. Finally, take the leftmost plate from the kitchen counter, the one whose sandwich has spilling sides, whose yellow creeps onto the crazed grey ceramic, staining bread, ready for tongue.
28. Usher the plate to the table, Omi and Sister close behind. Six tromping feet, three humming egg-salad sandwiches, one elated marching band. Omi sits in the middle, Sister to the left, you to the right. You always organize this way because Sister is left-handed, and you are right-handed. Omi is ambidextrous from being forced to write with her right hand as a child in Germany, so she can traverse the middle seat. She is careful not to throw elbows.
29. Lift one sandwich half, vigilant not to let the filling spill out, and take your first bite from its center. Sense the immediate sponginess of the bread that caresses your palette, feel abruptly overwhelmed by the oleaginous, salty, eggy miracle spilling out in every direction and encapsulating your tongue, which is then cheekily slapped by the rush of cheddar and altogether cushioned by more soft white bread. Chew, and the flavors coalesce, creating a wave from teeth to ears to toes. A wave that travels across plates and veins and minutes and years, across forgotten Söhne and ingested Alzheimer’s medication, across the last kiss on the nose and the yellow nasturtium in a box of tiny spine dust. You swallow, and you remember – not just her wrinkled hands scattered with eggshell but also the chubby fingers of her youth, before Kristallnacht, before the wedding band, before when she was a child like you. Swallow her stories and preserve them. Breathe them back into the world. All it takes is an hour and 17 ingredients.