On a recent weekend getaway to Yountville and Inverness, we stopped for breakfast at the Fremont Diner in Sonoma. From the outside, it looks like an old-timey roadside diner. But inside, it's a modern practitioner of sustainable cooking, using farm-fresh ingredients, whole-hog cooking, and local produce.
I think the diner may even have its own farm, and I spied chickens milling about the picnic table area. That didn't stop us from ordering the special "snack" sandwich featuring fried chicken and pickles on a grilled bun. We were too stuffed from breakfast to eat it right away, so Andrew carried it around in his pocket for a few hours. (It's like the little slider was designed for a pocket!) Even after its long journey, it tasted outstanding.
Niman Ranch. Marin Sun Farms. "House cured." The vocabulary of high-end restaurant menus is finding its way between the bread. It's a sustainable sandwich revolution, in which sandwich boards sound bourgier and panini get pricier, but for a good cause.
The classic American sandwich fillings — plasticine cheese, mass-produced cold cuts, and corn syrup condiments like Marshmallow Fluff — are neither sustainable nor particularly healthy. But why force fast-food philosophy on something so simple to make? A new wave of sandwich shops are slowing down, making their own ingredients, and finding local suppliers to construct better-for-you and better tasting sammies.
Given, it's mostly a West Coast phenomenon so far, but the model works everywhere from East Coast delis to mini chain restaurants. Find out where to get your fix.
Three makes a trend, so beet sandwiches must be in. First my mom shared a
backwoods version of my
beet sandwich recipe, and now
Angelica designs this fashionable sammie.
She enjoyed this beet sandwich at
Homegrown, a sustainable sandwich shop in Seattle. Called the Farmers Market Veggie, it combines roasted beets, goat cheese, aioli, mixed greens, and house pickled onions on country French bread. Says Angelica:
The sandwich was delightful and deliciously light, but I was most into the menu, which was written on a giant chalk board on one wall of the place. They also had a chart that showed which ingredients were local and or organic so you could pick accordingly if you were into that.
I'll have to hit this place up if I'm ever in Seattle. If you've been, please share. Or, share your own sandwich by emailing your photos to
nancy@betweenthebreadblog.com, along with a description of what's on your sandwich.
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