Sometimes you have to crack a few eggs to make a sandwich.
I understand how the alphabet works. So I know that California comes before Colorado (both alphabetically and in superiority — ooh! Sick state burn!!!!). But this week, for reasons beyond anyone’s control, we had to scrap our California sandwich eating plans and make a last-minute pivot.
We will come back to the California sandwich as soon as we can. Until then, we forge alphabetically ahead on the list.
Luckily this week’s switcharoo wasn’t a difficult one to make. Colorado’s contribution to the list is the Denver sandwich, which is described as “an omelet between two slices of bread with eggs, ham, cheddar, onions, and sauteed peppers.”
So, it’s a Denver omelet between toast — A slightly-fancier-than-usual breakfast sandwich. Cool, I guess? But also, that’s the best the list could do for Colorado? They have hunting and fishing and lots of other things that could work in various ways to make a delicious and unexpected sandwich, and you went with a sandwich that is lazily just the state capitol's namesake egg dish and slapped it between two slices of bread???
C’mon, whoever made this list that we are arbitrarily using as our sandwich bible! You can do better than that.
Anway…
I was not excited about this one. Partly because I was mentally, emotionally, and taste-buds-ally prepped for the California French Dip sandwich. And partly because seeing everything going on around the country this past weekend made sandwiches seem all too trivial.
But, we had to eat. It was Sunday. So we may as well eat sandwiches.
Even with my bad mood and kid-who-was-told-they-can’t-go-to-the-water-park-because-of-thunderstorms attitude, I have to say that Colorado ended up working out pretty well this week.
The first thing it had going for it was that it was fairly easy. We had almost all of the ingredients on hand and it didn’t take too much prep to make it, so it was kind of an ideal sandwich for a day with no motivation.
The second thing it had going for it — in a weird, backwards way — was that my expectations were so low. I walked into dinner expecting to walk away with my opinion being firmly and unapologetically, “meh.”
Come dinner time, I did the chopping, Nate did the omelet-ing, and it all came together pretty quickly. When we sat down and I took my first bite, I was actually pleasantly surprised. It was very tasty. This absolutely wasn’t the bleh-fest I had built up in my head.
Was it a knock-your-socks-off sandwich? No.
Was it a breakfast sandwich I’ll go to the trouble of making for myself again? No.
Will I make myself a Denver omelet again? Probably, now that we know that we’re pretty good at it. But I’ll just serve it with toast on the side like a normal human breakfast eater.
As happy as I was with the meal, it just didn’t have the sandwich DNA to make it into my top list. It was a clever person’s way to make their omelet more portable when they have to run to catch their train. While I think a breakfast sandwich — when done right — can be a sandwich worthy of a top-sandwich spot, this just isn’t it.
I fully believe in my stomach of stomachs that next week — whether we’re able to revisit our plan for the California sandwich or move ahead alphabetically and give Connecticut a go — that Colorado’s will be easily forgotten.
