After that epic fail of that shrimp and avocado couscous pita thing I tried to make a meal, I had to recover, reboot, and rebound. My sandwich making ego had taken a blow. How I was going to make up for that bland nothingness of last night’s dinner? Do I cook up something truly gourmet, something with truffles or lobster? I could do something intricate, but I was too nervous to follow another risky recipe.

Instead I went back to a trusty favorite. A turkey and cheese sandwich was a no-fail option. To beef it up, I combined it with a BLT, one of my favorite sandwiches to make, and thought a few slices of avocado instead of tomato, per E’s “food rules”, would be a home run. Until I suggested this to E.

“Sounds great. But hold the avocado on mine.”
“What, now you don’t like avocado now? I’ve put it on tons of sandwiches! What’s wrong with it?”
“I’m just not in the mood for it today, that’s all.”

I was in no place to argue. Fine, no avocado. I’ll produce exactly what he wants. But I wanted tomato, so threw some on mine if only for the color. I assembled two sandwiches, and placed them side by side. The tomato, I thought, gave mine more color. E was too hungry to pay attention to the differences (remember, we had cardboard and spongy shrimp the night before). He grabbed his sandwich, fled to the couch and and gobbled it down while watching “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” on the SyFy network.

“This is so much better than that last sandwich,” he said. I was back!
I danced around the kitchen, singing “Eye of the Tiger” as if I had just beaten down Dolph Lundgren with a loaf of bread.

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