Between the Bread

A few weeks ago, my friend Phil showed up at a bar with a nicoise tuna sandwich from Bi Rite Market, and I've been craving one ever since. On Sunday, after hitting the tennis ball around a while, Phil and I let Bi Rite supply our postgame sandwich picnic.

Since Phil was also getting the nicoise — pan-seared tuna, saffron aioli, olive tapenade, and heirloom tomatoes — I considered, for about 30 seconds, ordering something else, then decided to do what I'd come there to do, and it did not disappoint. Read on for my thoughts and more photos.

My friend Hunter was wise enough to marry an awesome Spanish woman and nice enough to share the sandwich he's eating this summer in Spain. As he explains, "Summer in Spain means beaches and bocadillos. At any of the bars or beachside chiringuitos, you're sure to find some variation of this classic Spanish sandwich."

The simple sandwich highlights two of Spain's most famous homegrown ingredients: Iberian ham and creamy, cured Flor de Esgueva Manchego cheese, which Hunter calls the Bentley of Manchegos.

Keep reading for more photos and details.

What to get the woman who loves sandwiches? Just ask my childhood friend Tiffany and her husband David, who dropped off an early wedding gift when they passed through San Francisco this weekend.

Yes, those are sandwich-shaped salt and pepper shakers, but that's just the icing on the cake butter on the bread. A talented seamstress, Tiffany fashioned adorable owl-motif napkins and a matching picnic blanket with a sturdy plaid flannel underside. She wrapped the handiwork in a colorful picnic basket, along with melamine plates, sporks, plastic tumblers, and a card game called Slamwich that comes packaged in a lunchbox.

To top it all off, she added the salt and pepper shakers and a can of Slap Ya Mama hot sauce, from her family's hometown of Ville Platte, Louisiana. Get a closer look at the napkins and blanket.

I set off on a mission to make my first Vegemite sandwich and ended up with an Elvis-inspired after-school snack instead.

I had every intention of creating what I'd dubbed the Aussie after-school snack: a Vegemite and banana sandwich, recommended by a Vegemite-loving acquaintance. But after tasting some of the very intense condiment on toast, I decided I needed to ease in to the Vegemite. Maybe something less exotic, like 'mite and cheddar.

Almond butter and banana on wheat is fast becoming my new comfort food. For more photos, including my Vegemite experiment, read more

Peanut butter and banana sandwiches and Elvis Presley are forever linked. The King's favorite appears on the diner menu at Graceland, and Peanut Butter and Co. in New York serves an Elvis sandwich that's a PB&B, plus honey and bacon. If you think that sounds decadent, sit down to the tale of Elvis and the Fool's Gold Loaf.

According to The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley, legend has it that in 1976, Elvis hopped a plane from Memphis to Denver and back in a single night just to get his jaws around a sandwich called the Fool’s Gold, served at the Colorado Mine Company restaurant in Denver. He'd been reminiscing about the delicious $50 sandwich when he decided to sate his friends' curiosity by flying them to Denver for a very extreme takeout order.

Serving eight to 10 people and containing more than 40,000 calories, the Fool’s Gold may be the most quintessentially American sandwich ever created. Here's why.

My hometown now has a joint called Cupalicious, which features a rather unappetizing website but very appetizing sandwiches. Perhaps the fact that it's located in a suburban office strip proves they mean business. Between the Bread readers Hal and Laurie (creator of the Sloppy Jayne) recently snapped photos of their Cupalicious feast.

The deli sandwich with fries ($7.25, above) and chicken salad sandwich ($4, below) look Carnegie-esque in size, but for seriously less cash. I want one, weird website be damned.

Have you recently eaten a sandwich worth sharing? Send in your sandwich photos to nancy@betweenthebreadblog.com, along with a description of what's on your sandwich.

From Working Girls, this sandwich was truly delicious. Very spicy snapper, salsa and avocado, and a plush, sturdy, and flavorful wheat roll.

I recently spent a wonderful but torturous two days in Chicago — torturous because I can only eat so many meals in two days, yet I have many Chicago restaurants I want to sample. (I did eat some great food, just not a sandwich.) High on my list is Gaztro-Wagon, a food cart pioneer specializing in naan-wiches.

I consider naan a criminally underutilized bread. I've made my own tandoori chicken naan-wiches and wrapped Rosamunde sausages in naan. Gaztro-Wagon seems willing to fold just about any cuisine into the Indian flatbread: Italian sausage, lamb and tzatziki, chicken and brie, smoked salmon and creme fraiche, and wild boar belly and fennel.

For now, Gaztro-Wagon is operating out of a storefront until Chicago's food-truck ordinance passes (any day now), and the chef and creator, Matt Maroni, helped craft the legislation. Maybe when Gaztro-Wagon's wheel are legit, he can drive out to San Francisco.

You'd think any sandwich loaded with lobster would be divine, but they can't all be as stellar as the lobster roll Phil had on the East Coast. Andrew recently ordered the lobster BLT with cucumber-mint salad at San Francisco's Waterbar, but the sando proved to be a great idea, poorly executed, with stale bread and not very flavorful shellfish. For $22, lobster or no, a sandwich should be damn near perfect.

Have you recently eaten a sandwich worth sharing? Send in your sandwich photos to nancy@betweenthebreadblog.com, along with a description of what's on your sandwich.