Hello! My name is Rebecca May Johnson, I am a writer and cook and this is my Substack. Each week I send out a short piece of writing, a diary entry, recipes and notes on what I’ve been eating at home and elsewhere.
Sandwich Season
Making a sandwich marked my re-emergence into the world after several weeks inside. I tested negative for covid, the sun came out, and I had a sudden desire for a sandwich. I cut two slices of bread from a supermarket seeded loaf, toasted them lightly as it was not fresh, spread them with butter, cut ½ cm slices of extra mature cheddar cheese and lay them to cover one slice, onto the other I spread a generous amount of my mother’s pear and lemon chutney. I brought the two halves together and cut the sandwich in half with the bread knife. I made a cup of red bush tea, took a ripe conference pear from the fruit bowl, sat at the table, and looked out at the blue sky while I ate. The sandwich emboldened me to put on shoes and go for a walk. I opened the door, turned right, and walked past the yard for Trinity House, which maintains shipping lanes and generally keeps waters safe for seafarers. Through the fence I could see giant buoys inscribed the words ‘WRECK’ to mark sunken ships, huge red and green channel markers to guide incoming vessels away from rocks and shallows, and coils of the biggest metal chains I have ever seen. A small fishing boat motored from right to left across my line of sight, coming in from a morning’s work. I kept walking and noted the new turquoise banquette seating in the cafe on the pier, which I have not visited since new owners took over. Someone told me that they want to make it into a central European-style cafe. Would I eat Wiener schnitzel on the pier some time? Previously I have eaten an English breakfast there.
A few leisure boats were in the harbour, drawn out by the sun. I continued walking and turned through the open flood gates into the small beach in between two jetties used by the RNLI lifeboats. The sand on the beach had been rinsed by the ebb tide to make a crisp smooth surface. Green shoots of beach rocket were emerging from the woody brown clump of last year’s dried out plant and in the new sunny warmth and it felt like a spring awakening. I continued, walking underneath a jetty across another bit of beach and onto the promenade where I overheard some conversational snippets. ‘…And my sister’s running around Australia living on Millionaire’s Row with a sports car’, said one woman to the other; I also saw several dogs: greyhounds, dalmatians, various mutts, and some dachshunds. I went on round the breakwater and then, suddenly very tired and remembering this was the furthest I had walked in several weeks, I sat on a bench. A benefit of living in a town where a lot of residents are very old is that there are plentiful benches. I decided to shorten my walk and not go to the charity shop in town to look at the cookery book section, as I had planned to. As I got up from the bench and began back towards home, a woman with a walking stick who I had said overtaken earlier, said cheerfully, ‘it’s just as tiring going back the other way!’
All this – my walk – was made possible, foretold even, by my sandwich. Sandwiches contain the promise of a journey whether or not I am going on one. To make oneself a sandwich is to do the work of provisioning. The portability and completeness of a sandwich acts as reassurance in an unknown setting; when I have a one wrapped in my bag, I feel equipped to weather uncertainty, it will keep me going. When I think of sandwiches, I think again of Ursula Le Guin with whom I began this newsletter series: in the first book of her Earthsea series of novels there is a lot of sailing. Le Guin always takes care to remind the reader that when at sea, there must be bread to survive.
‘On he went [in rough seas], and kept keen lookout on all sides. The fisherman’s wife had given him two loaves of bread and a jar of water, and after some hours, when he was first in sight of Kameber Rock…he ate and drank, and thought gratefully of the silent Gontishwoman who had given him the food.’
No amount of money can stand in for food at sea. When I was thirteen, I sailed several miles out at sea in a force 8 gale and I did not have a sandwich. I was the ‘crew’ in a 12-foot-long wooden dingy, sailing in a race with an eighteen-year-old boy, whose boat it was. He did not bring any food, just one can of coke between us which was stuck with electrical tape to the mast of the boat. It exploded when we hit a wave as I was reaching desperately for it. After five hours we capsized for the final time and gave into the waves – there were holes in the hull and the sail, and we were too tired to heave it upright; we held onto ropes until we were plucked out of the water by the rescue boat. After reading Le Guin, I thought about that experience again. We had recklessly rushed out to sea not thinking of food; if we’d have brought sandwiches and water, it is likely we would have been able to manage the storm.
A Week in Sandwiches
These sandwiches were not eaten in dramatic circumstances, but nonetheless, making and eating each one brought its own excitement and pleasure. The latter two were the beneficiaries of a bout of pickle-making energy I had on Monday, when I made kimchi, fermented daikon radish, and spiced preserved quinces. I used kimchi in two sandwiches this week and loved the moisture, deep savoury quality and hint of chilli that it brought. This is the kimchi recipe I used; it worked really well for me.
Sandwich before a walk (for one): Cheddar, Butter, Chutney
Ingredients:
two slices of bread
butter
extra mature cheddar cheese
pear and lemon chutney
How to make:
Lightly toast both slices of bread. Spread both slices with butter. Cut enough cheddar in ½ cm thick slices to cover one slice. Spread the other slice with chutney. Bring the two slices together and cut in two. Eat.
Very good followed by or eaten with a sharp apple or in this case, a pear, and a cup of tea.
Sandwich for a late morning (for two): Avocado, Bacon, Egg, Kimchi,
This was an 11am breakfast after a late evening talking and drinking with friends. The night before I had seen a film shown as a test screening in a newly restored 1911 cinema in the town where I live. We saw the updated West Side Story, during which I ate a packet of Minstrels purchased from the cute refreshments booth, sadly no popcorn was available.
Ingredients:
four slices of fresh bread
one avocado, peeled and mashed with a fork and seasoned with salt and a drizzle of olive oil
smoked streaky bacon, four rashers
two eggs
kimchi
sriracha (optional)
How to make:
Fry the bacon until quite crisp but not completely dried out and remove to a plate. In the bacon fat, fry two eggs and cook until the yolk is almost but not completely set. Spread two slices of the bread with avocado, then add the bacon rashers, then the egg, then a thin layer of kimchi, then a little sriracha for extra heat depending on the kimchi.
Sandwich for dinner (for two): Ham, Egg, Mayonnaise, Kimchi
At the weekend we drove for an hour on a whim to visit a bakery next to a windmill in Suffolk (thanks to Nicola Miller for the recommendation). We bought a lot of things there: two loaves, a rhubarb custard pastry to share, a cheese and mustard straw, a piece of cheese and onion focaccia, and six white rolls. The rolls are possibly the best I have ever had. Soft, yet well-structured, with a little elasticity to hold it together while being filled. Not at all cakey. A little sweet but good savoury depth too. Exceptional! Using slices of egg as I do here reminds me of the filled rolls sold in bakeries in Berlin when I lived there, where the filling is half-in, half-out of the roll, alluringly on display and thus also informatively showing you the flavours.
This would also be great made without the ham. I put some fermented daikon in a little dish to have on the side with our rolls. We each had a second roll with just butter and ham.
Ingredients:
two fresh white rolls
two eggs, boiled for 8 minutes, refreshed in cold water then peeled
ham, two slices from a butcher
mayonnaise (I used Kewpie)
kimchi
butter
How to make:
When the eggs are cool, slice them with an egg-slicer or using a sharp knife. I took the opportunity to use my novelty egg slicer for the first time. Halve the rolls with a bread knife. Butter the bottom half then lay on the ham. Arrange the sliced egg on top, season with black pepper. Then, if using Kewpie mayonnaise, squeeze over zig-zags of mayo on top of the egg. If using mayo from a jar, gently smooth some over using a knife. On top of that, a layer of kimchi. Then a little more mayonnaise on the other half of the roll, then bring together.
We had this for dinner with a glass of Beaujolais bought from a nice new wine shop in Bury St Edmunds while on the same day trip during which we visited the bakery.
Eating Notes
A piece of toast spread with soft goat’s cheese and covered with chopped walnuts, served with several slices of spiced preserved quince which I made on Monday, and chicory roasted in butter. The quince recipe, which I have now made twice, is from Elizabeth David Salt, Spices and Aromatics in the English Kitchen. To cook the chicory, I quartered two heads of chicory lengthways, leaving them attached at the bottom. Then I seasoned them with salt and pepper. I melted two tablespoons of butter in a heavy cast iron frying pan and when the foaming subsided, I added the chicory quarters. I cooked them on the hob, turning them until they were browned on all sides then put them in the oven for 20 minutes until they were soft all the way through. I gave them a small squeeze of lemon just before serving.
Fish and chips cooked in beef dripping and a can of coke eaten outside the night before the full moon on a park bench with my friend Laura before we watched West Side Story in the restored cinema.
Bucatini with cicoria – I left the cicoria in a bowl of cold water to allow any dirt to fall to the bottom then refreshed the water twice more and picked it over. Then I put it in a large frying pan with salt, sliced garlic and dried chillies on a medium heat, and put a lid on till it wilted then I fried it. I added the pasta and some cooking water to the frying pan and tossed it with a little more olive oil and served.
A breakfast tray of egg and bacon and ketchup buttered roll with coffee and then a small dish of mango with chilli lime salt, eaten with a fork.