White Water Rafting - Interlude

On Everything Sandwiches, Perfect Bites, and Disintegrating Shoes

On the night that I met Heather, I noticed something peculiar about her. When eating, she maximizes her culinary experience through architecture. She builds bites. We talked about this process, which is intended to build the Perfect Bite. Heather cleaves off a bit of every feature of the meal and skewers it on her fork, creating strata of yummy goodness. I've taken to this process, as it combines my dual loves of food and blocks. I'm sure that there is food that doesn't deserve such high treatment, and I fully intend to cook her several examples.

Our guide for day one on the American River, Darren, was a true believer in the Perfect Bite. He has devised a way to front-load the engineering which Heather dubbed the Everything Sandwich. Having grown up with Dagwood and Scooby Doo, I understood the concept of a sandwich that leaves no ingredient behind. However, I had always thought that such arcane constructs were things of animated myth and legend. Darren taught me a thing or two.

As discussed in this comment thread, we are relatively sure that the Everything Sandwich includes any or all of the following:

Wheat Bread
Smoked Ham
Roast Beef
Turkey
Chunky Peanut Butter
Strawberry Jam
Dijon Mustard
Lettuce
Tomato
Diced Fresh Jalapeño
Pepperoncini
Pickles
Green Pepper
Cucumber
Sun-dried Tomato
Artichoke Hearts
A Cookie
Love
Meat-Eating Wasps to taste

The wasps are very optional. I really do tend to turn into a little girl around things that fly and sting, but these pests were pretty easy to deal with. They swarmed around the meat, sawing off millimeter cubes of flesh and flying off in drunken barrel rolls. They were hardly interested in a fight and very tolerant of waving hands taking their turn. If you cringe around stingers, these jovial guys are great therapy. You may have to decoy them with a sheet of turkey to keep them out of your Everything Sandwich.

Darren built a sandwich using all of the above ingredients. I didn't think this was possible or particularly safe. After Heather tasted this concoction and offered me a bit, sporting a stripe of sandwich from ear to ear, I told her that I was making a whole bundle of my own. It rocked. As I said last time, Food Network, pick up the phone.

The last wedge I'll smack in between days one and two is a sad tale of old sneakers. I brought my tried and true Nikes to Coloma. I love Nike trainers, particularly the ones that are not monogrammed by an athlete of the moment. No Jordans, thanks. These shoes served me well, but the American River was not on the list of approved environmental conditions. After day one, they sort of... Exploded. The Nikes were laid to rest in a quiet ceremony. We made an emergency shoe run to the local tourist trap and picked up some Keen Hood River sandals for something acceptably shy of obscene. These shoes are great for amphibious mischief. They are a bit hard to break in around the ankle, so bring some paper tape and save your skin.