The Dinner Files

I’ve made these before, I made them again. Abalone po’ boys. Inspired, obviously, by shrimp and/or oyster po’ boys that are huge sandwiches filled with fried seafood, lettuce, tomato, and, for us last night anyway, a bit of red cabbage slaw and whatever else people thought to throw in them. They are an excellent way to stretch abalone to feed a crowd and we had a wee bit of a crowd last night.

Luckily, Very Tall Cousin Sam had caught his limit of 3 abalone. But we had 7 people to feed, including Sam and his brother, Awfully Tall Cousin Elliot, who was visiting for the weekend, Cousin Katie and her girlfriend Nilka, and the regular threesome that usually shows up for dinner at our house.

It may have been Easter and we may be family, but it was not an Easter dinner, a fact made clear by the lack of candy and the confusion expressed by several members of the party as to what, exactly, Easter celebrates.

So we stood around and drank beer and laughed and the guys took a 2-by-4 to the abalone wrapped in a towels in order to tenderize it whole (result: a bit mangled, not as thoroughly tender as when pounded by the slice, but much quicker) before I floured and fried the abalone for the sandwiches. We then put large sandwich rolls, every condiment in the fridge, a platter of thinly sliced tomato and red onion, some lettuce, and a mixing bowl of red cabbage slaw (very thinly sliced red cabbage splashed with sherry vinegar and sprinkled with salt and pepper and allowed to sit until just a bit wilted) on the table along with the paper-towel-lined cutting board covered with overlapping pieces of golden, pretty-much tender, rich and meaty abalone.

And then, activity-based-bonding family that we are, we hit the streets, kicked the soccer ball around, walked Katie and Nilka’s dog, and played Pickle-in-the-Middle with Ernest as the perpetual laugh-filled pickle.

The thing about banh mi – those Vietnamese sandwiches of grilled prok or chicken or tofu with shredded vegetables and cilantro and mayo (sometimes) and pâté (sometimes) and chiles (sometimes) on French baguettes or baguette-style rolls – is that even the mediocre ones are pretty tasty.

Ernest and I were walking home from school yesterday and for the millionth and third time in my life we went by a deli at 23rd and San Bruno. We lived around the corner from this Chinese/Vietnamese deli for 10 years. I walked by it almost everyday – sometimes more than once, sometimes even more than twice. I always thought: hey, I should check that out sometime. And yet I never did. In my defence I was often going by while on a walk or run and wouldn’t have nay money on me. Or, I’d be on my way to or from the train station and it would be closed. But, let’s be honest, I must have walked by dozens if not hundreds of times when it was open and I had a couple of bucks on me.

The name – Tweety Bird Deli – both fascinated and repelled me. It’s across the street from San Francisco General* and seemed to exist mainly to serve lunch to hospital workers, which is a fine mission but not one that speaks particularly highly of the cuisine. It closes at 6, which means they start cleaning up and generally looking fairly closed by 5, so we never tried it for dinner take-out.

But now Ernest and I walk by it to and from school. It’s also under new ownership, looks cleaned up a bit, and the name is now Uli Deli. So last night we stopped in. I thought a fun Friday treat would be some spring rolls to take home as snack. They were out of spring rolls, but some salmon filets on a bed of lettuce caught Ernest’s eye. Why not? I ordered a banh mi for myself and dinner was served the minute we got home.

It was mediocre – oddly sweet with no fresh chile slices. But, as I mentioned above, even mediocre banh mi can really hit the spot.

* In our family we have a strict rule: Do not go to General unless you have a gun shot wound, in which case definitely go to General.

Ernie is getting his hot days. And hot nights. Last night we sat in my parents’ backyard–no fog rolled in, no wind picked up, no sweaters were needed. I picked up sandwiches, noodle salads, and spring rolls from Jasmine Deli, my favorite Vietnamese restaurant. I have no pictures for you. Camera battery went dead. Too bad. The grilled pork on baguette rolls with cilantro, chiles, shredded carrot, and shredded green papaya were as pretty as can be.

Later on I headed to Cafe Barbette to meet a friend. As she predicted, I had “just a glass of wine” (she seems to find this high-larious). She decided to have wine too, and so ordered the same thing I did. The server left and she turned to me in a panic, “that wasn’t a $20 glass of wine you ordered, was it?”

I kind of love that she thought I’d be ordering $20 glasses of wine. It sounds very fabulous, in a way. But internets, I’m a freelance writer. No $20 glasses of anything for me. $20 bottles, sure. $20 glasses, no.

So we sat and sipped and soaked up the energy that emanates from Upper Midwesterners when they have long, warm summer nights at their disposal. It is joyous. It is contagious. It is palpable. I love it.