(Yesterday I began my response to the Cheese Sandwich Controversy of 2006 with The Cheese Sandwich Chronicles, a fun foray into light hearted musings about cheese sandwiches and the serious subject of snobbery in the food-writing world.)

This is day two of the Cheese Sandwich Chronicles, wherein I am hoping not to disintegrate into pointless cheese sandwich meanderings as I report on my latest cheese sandwich. Since yesterday one thing has become clear to me, and a lot of other bloggers too, we love the idea of cheese sandwiches, and in a few cases we love the reality of them too. But listen up, cheese sandwich lovers: nobody cares what food magazine you are getting your cheese sandwich recipes from. After all, does anybody really believe that America needs more cheese sandwich recipes?

Today, to make sure I was not creating a cheese sandwich that no food pornographer worth his gold chains would touch, I first had to answer for myself, this cheese sandwich is about______. Since I had some roasted asparagus on hand, I knew my sandwich would be partly about asparagus. On the way home, I stopped at one of Salt Lake’s premiere import shops, Granatos, where I purchased some Kalamata Rosemary Bread, so this sandwich would partly be about that. And last, but not in any way least, this sandwich would be about Delice De Bourgogne, a lovely French Triple Creme cheese which I purchased at the same Costceau I mentioned yesterday as being a purveyor of fine cheese. Now I know you don’t want to hear any heavy breathing about it, but this cheese tastes amazing.

To make this sandwich, take cheese out of the refrigerator and let come to room temperature. Cut bread into slices. (For lower carbs, slice the bread thinner!) Spread softened cheese generously on inside of bread slices. Put 4-5 pieces of warm or cold roasted asparagus in the center of each sandwich. Drizzle with vinaigrette if desired. Serve with a healthy dose of food blog reading and a tiny side of the food network. Probably not suitable for serving with some food magazines.

Yesterday I evaluated my sandwich using the excellent criteria developed by cheese sandwich lover and food blog reader Pete Wells. Again, thank you to Mr. Wells for providing it for us. However, in order to avoid slipping into ever murkier legions of idiocy I am going to use varied evaluation instruments in these chronicles. In the world of academia where I work, this is called multiple lines of evidence. Today, I’m using teacher’s notes and a simple letter grade scale to evaluate the sandwich.

Lest anyone who knows that I’m a teacher is worried that I’m violating the separation of work and blog, let me make it clear that my students are graded on a rubric scale 1-4, with 4 being complete mastery of the material and 1 being “Duh. Are you listening at all?” For the sandwiches I’m using a simple A-B-C-D-F grading scale. Now, again to evaluate this latest sandwich before it goes into the belly or the blog.

Reading: Could you eat this sandwich while you are reading the food blogs?

Teacher’s notes: The sandwich is not messy, as long as you’re careful not to let the asparagus fall out onto your keyboard. Go easy on the vinaigrette because it makes the computer keys really sticky if it drips out.

Grade: B+

Math: Can the sandwich be added to, subtracted from, multiplied or divided?

Teacher’s Notes: You could add some sliced ham, bacon, or turkey next to the cheese. Asparagus haters could subtract asparagus and substitute avocado. The recipe can be doubled easily. The sandwich could also be divided in two and shared among friends.

Grade: A

Writing: Does the sandwich stick to one main idea, use proper mechanics, and have a consistent voice?

Teacher’s Notes: I believe the French cheese, Italian bread, and asparagus all convey the idea of uniqueness in sandwich ingredients. No construction rules were broken in the composition of the sandwich. The sandwich has a fresh voice, which is consistent throughout.

Grade: A

Science: Was there a hypothesis put forth and tested in the making of the sandwich?

Teacher’s Notes: I hypothesized that the sandwich was going to taste amazing, particularly since I love triple creme cheese of any type, and it did. For real scientifically veriable results, I should have made two sandwiches, one to eat and one for a control group. I was simply too eager to finish the sandwich and neglected this important step in validating my hypothesis.

Grade: C+

Geography: Was the sandwich representational of different geographic regions?

Teacher’s Notes: This sandwich contained cheese from France, bread which came from an Italian market and which contained Kalamata olives from Greece, butter from Utah, and asparagus from California. The student could have easily incorporated some ingredients from other areas, but there was good variety in geographical origin of the sandwich ingredients.

Grade: B+

Final Grade: B+

Certainly an acceptable grade, and one which should be sufficient to prevent me from repeating a grade in Food Blog S’Cool. Another successful cheese sandwich experiment. Clearly I am not going to be labeled as a *one cheese sandwich wonder* blog. I feel excited by my successes in this new endeavor. Tune in tomorrow for The Cheese Sandwich Chronicles, Third and final installment.

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