Indulging the Sensuous Sandwich
Joan's on Third
By Arty Nelson
Now, listen. lemme start by saying the sandwich I had cost five cents shy of $10, and all I got on the side were a few sweet pickle slices. That being said, and that's a lot, I'd do it again in a NYC minute crossed with a fruit fly's heartbeat.
It's early in the day, and the L.A. late fall sun is throwing its somewhat chilling rays onto the ground all around me. It's quiet in that autumn way that things get more quiet. The birds, the snakes, the people - all of them go into a kind of working turtle mode. Battered and bruised from another summer of cocktail parties with British girls in Malibu named Tildy, or whatever Eastside equivalent suits you, we do the best we can to pump back up the energy as the shadowed menace that is the holiday sprint hangs in the balance of this month and the next. Fires climb out of chimneys, signaling the mounting of the inward evolution, a cry from deep down that alludes to the ever-disintegrating reincarnation that we all quest hungrily for. It's time to take care of one's self in a way that might entail gaining an extra pound or 10.
Nose to the grindstone, we inch along, hoping against the ever-growing gales that the answers we arrive upon will lend themselves heavily in favor of the 20 steps around the perimeter of oblivion, where long ago so many of us chose to settle. And it is right then with this knowledge of my personal psychic-migration that I board the Jeepster and venture perilously west to where one can experience L.A.'s very own bully-baby Dean & Deluca ... Joan's on Third.
Now, I know you may think my information is at best gray, if not entirely wishy-washy, and maybe even a tad morbid ... and I will confess gladly that you are right to have such an opinion. Things happen inside this skull of mine, and the best I can do is give you a semi-honest picture of what I think and feel about it, and now that I have done this as best as my own denial will permit me, and with all of that in mind, I will commence.
I've all but wept standing at the counter peering into the glass shelves of this fine place. Whether it be for the cheeses, or the well-cultivated spread of baked goods - including not only the seasonally sexy pumpkin cupcakes, but also the hazelnut meringue with apricot cream filling - what I'm saying is that this is a place where answers can be found to some of this city's most elusive and non-concrete questions. Problems and great masked half-truths that have sent much better men out of high windows without parachutes. And at the heart of this absurd and very gratifying journey is my selection, the Venetian Coppa with Provolone and olive paste on baguette. Really quite exquisite ... between the freshness of the bread, moist and light but hearty - thanks to a crunchy crust - to the meat item sliced perfectly thin but not so much as to take away the richness of the taste or texture. More than a mere meal. I must confess to having feelings that, at one point, I considered heading to the bathroom to conclude them and/or sate them in a kind of public privacy. Really so much more than I often feel from a sandwich, not to mention a well-balanced tart but sweet house-blend lemonade that provided ample palate-cleansing between bites and at the same time took me to a land of liquidy bliss.
It's a lot to ask, I know ... . But eating is something that most of us do at least twice a day - in my case, much more - and as humans in relatively good standing, we owe it to ourselves to take it all to a kind of next-level that borders, like all good things, on the perverse. Relish seductively while looking back admittedly in anger. Forge passageways in places previously considered unapproachable. Make the best of what's blowing up all around you. Cancel the debts and sins of all the people who have ever let you down. Make a move that even surprises you. Buy stock in things based mostly on your own passions. Make art out of the confusion. And save the sorrow for times when you can reach with confidence into a pile of foodstuffs and get out a sack filled with goodies labeled lovingly by the always helpful staff from Joan's on Third. Don't let the hawks swoop too low. Don't buy the milk if the cow's winking at you from across the room. And, oh yeah, try the chocolate roullade. Ciao.Published: 11/26/2003
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