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HOW LONG? 20 MINUTES

HOW MUCH? 4 SERVINGS

CHAPTER SIX

SANDWICHED

Pepper Steak Grinders with Mango Chutney

Open-Faced Tuna and Cheddar Melt

Red Curry Falafel

Dolmades Wraps with Feta and Fresh Mint

Grilled Sourdough Pizza with Tomato Pesto

Ginger-Teriyaki Cheeseburgers

Sloppy Joes

Garlic Shrimp Po’boys with Cheesy Slaw

Warmed Smoked Salmon and Bacon Bagel

Smoked Turkey Breast and Apple Chutney Panini

Grilled Asian Chicken Sandwich

Flatbread Grilled Cheese with Spinach and Prosciutto

Triple Seafood Salad on Butter-Toasted Buns

Roasted Tomato and Ricotta Bruschetta

Soft Tacos with Spicy Lime Pulled Chicken

Fig, Prosciutto, and Goat Cheese Panini

I’m going to hell. I’ve been heading there since I was about five. And it’s all over a hot dog.

It wasn’t easy being a pudgy and reluctant Catholic school boy with a Jewish last name. The Grey Nuns of the Cross of Ottawa wouldn’t even accept the donations Mom sent with me to school every month.

So instead I spent it on the handmade ice cream sandwiches sold at the candy and card shop I passed on my walk home. Thin, crisp waffle cookies that sandwiched a slab of vanilla. I’d start by nibbling away the cookies until there was just enough to hold the now softened, nearly naked, creamy middle. Then I’d slowly work my tongue around the perimeter. Not that I was obsessive.

Using God’s funds for gourmand pleasures probably didn’t help my chances for eternal salvation. But my more serious sin was a failure to eat hot dogs. Mom, a longtime vegetarian, wouldn’t let me. And to the nuns who ran Ste. Jeanne d’Arc School—to which my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother had gone, but who’s counting?—this was nearly as bad as thinking wicked thoughts about the young and shapely Sister Maria.

Abstaining from frankfurters was an egregious display of individuality in a school where the girls dressed in upholstery-like plaid jumpers and the boys were a sea of navy polyester. The every-other-Friday-except-during-Lent Hot Dog Days were a big deal. The nuns would pilot a hot dog vendor cart otherwise reserved for craft and bake sales down the hallways, presenting greasy links classroom by classroom with about the same ceremony as Communion.

Meanwhile, I ate the same cheese and mustard on whole wheat Mom packed in my Empire Strikes Back lunch box every day.

Worse still, I didn’t drink milk. You’d swear I was going all Martin Luther on them they way they reacted. And I wish I could blame some contrarian rebellious instincts.

Milk just wasn’t a beverage in my home. You could cook with it and pour it over whole-grain, no-added-sugar breakfast cereal. And we were happy to eat it in its various frozen and coagulated forms. But drink it? Just never really occurred to us.

And so I never paid my $2.50 a week in milk money, which as with our tithing, was to be proffered in small, preprinted envelopes. Morning snack would come, and I would be passed over by the student lucky enough to be selected for milk distribution duty. I usually got eraser duty.

I still don’t eat hot dogs. I still don’t drink milk. And I gave up trying to win the hearts of nuns decades ago. But I have moved way beyond cheese and mustard sandwiches.

Pepper Steak Grinders with Mango Chutney

There are plenty of ways to tart up a grinder. But sometimes old-fashioned ground black pepper is the best bet. In this case, tons of ground black pepper. Apply as much as you can handle; the mango chutney moderates the heat.

Four 6-inch sub rolls

Dijon mustard

1 cup mango chutney

3 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper

2 tablespoons kosher salt

12 thinly sliced eye round steaks (also called steak medallions)

6 deli slices provolone cheese, halved

Heat a grill or grill pan to high.

Cut each roll in half lengthwise. Slather one half of each roll with mustard. Spread the chutney over the mustard, dividing it equally among the rolls.

Combine the pepper and