National HUH? day
So, we’re on our way to get a couple of Cuban sandwiches yesterday, and suddenly hear on the radio that it’s National Family Health & Fitness Day. We didn’t do anything healthy or fit yesterday. Did I mention, we were going to get Cuban sandwiches? Later, we see on TV that the upcoming week is ABC’s National Stay-at-Home Week. We’re not planning to stay at home, because even though we watch some ABC shows, we have a DVR, so we can come and go as we please. Who makes up these national and international days and what’s the point unless there are some teeth behind the idea, to enforce it? Don’t declare national and international days of anything unless you have the power to make it so. Either we do things as a mob, or we just do them when fancy strikes, as individuals. Like the International Talk Like a Pirate Day that we apparently just missed. Well, we didn’t talk like pirates that day, so it’s not international, is it, because we weren’t part of it, and we are an integral part of the world population. If you’re going to nationalize and internationalize, do it properly, with some muscle, to make sure everybody participates.
My husband says that anyone can declare any day a national or international day of anything, and that I could declare an International Cuban Sandwich Day, if I wanted to. Well, maybe I would, if I had an international army big enough to help me force a Cuban sandwich down the throats of everybody in the world, including vegans and carbophobes. He also said something about instituting an International Gimme a Dollar Day, but I think there are too many people in the world who don’t have a dollar, so that’s just unrealistic.
Since I don’t have an international army to back me up, anyone is welcome to make their own Cuban sandwich, the way they make it at the Cuba Bakery in Union City:
Cuban bread, fluffy and crusty
mayonnaise
slices of Genoa salami (apparently, that makes the sandwich Miami-style, but we don’t mind)
slices of roast pork loin
Cut the bread lengthwise, spread enough mayonnaise on the halves just to moisten, lay the salami on the bottom half, then the pork, cover with the top half, heat through (like an Italian panino) in a sandwich press. Cut in halves crosswise, on a slant. Never mind the health and fitness — Cuban sandwiches aren’t slimming.
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Pickles?
November 14, National Pickle Day (http://www.tfdutch.com/foodh.htm). Our Cuban bakery doesn’t use them, and I’m pretty sure pickles (as in, pickled cucumbers) are a Northern European thing, but who’s to stop you?
I think I remember pickles being on the Cuban sandwiches I had when I was in Miami, but that was a long time ago. Anyway, it’s good to know that pickles have their own day as well.
I bet it’s a Russian influence. How would the Cubans have come up with the idea of a pickle, in the middle of the Caribbean, if they hadn’t been under the Soviets’ wing?