One more piece that fit the puzzle

I read this article in the July Issue of Real Simple magazine. (that's another weird thing about me - I love reading old issues more than the current ones). It fixed some old hurt, filled some void, brought me back on track from some detour I had taken sometime while growing up.
I wish I could just add it as a link but cant because I cant locate it anywhere on the online version of the magazine. I loved it so much though that I'm going to type it all out here. Maybe you guys might like it too. Lemme know if you do. And then next hopefully the library will have her books...

It's called 'unforgettable, that's what you are' and its by Erica Wagner.
Here goes:


THE SUMMER I WAS SEVEN, my parents and I drove from our New York City home to the small town of Quechee, Vermont, to visit friends. Mush of that trip has left me with indelible memories. I remember the sticky red vinyl seats in my Dad's Volkswagen Beetle; the cool, green swimming pond in our friends backyard; and their milk-shake machine - a real one, a Hamilton Beach. It was idyllic, that house and the land and the ancient trees. What I remember most, however? One particular tuna-fish sandwich, which evolved in my memory into an icon and embodiment of childhood bliss.

I encountered the world's best tuna-fish sandwich by accident. My parents had taken me off to explore the countryside, and after a morning of adventuring (visiting a glass-blowing factory, skipping stones on a creek), we needed lunch. We looked for a place to stop but found nothing. I grew hungry and then hungrier. Hours passed, or so it seemed. My parents, frustrated, burst into giddy laughter as time wore on and we still could find nowhere to stop and eat. And then, around the bend in the road,my dad spotted a white clapboard building with a neat sign hanging from the eaves, proclaiming it to be a diner. I did'nt think so-diners are streamlined and silver, not quaint little houses but never mind. We parked and went in, where were welcomed by a middle-aged lady with a lilting accent. She and her husband (the owners) were Swedish and to this day we refer to them as Mr. and Mrs. Swedish.

They sat us down and I ordered a tuna-fish sandwich. I liked tuna then. I like it now, though these days I might eat it seared or raw out of a pretty Italian jar with extra-virgin olive oil. But back then when I was a kid, the tuna sandwich was my default. And that day I needed something fast and reliable, something that wouldnt disappoint.

Talk about an understatement. The sandwich was the most delicious thing I've ever eaten: perfection on white toast, bound with mayonnaise.. I remember the smiling Swedishes refilling my parents' coffee cups and the sunlight through their yellow curtains. (Maybe even then I had an inkling that the sandwich alone was'nt the whole story, that the snack was somehow a signifier of transcendence.) How much mayo in the mix? How much celery? Was the tuna from a can packed with oil or water? I have no idea.

But I do know this: For the past 30 years, I've searched for a comparable sandwich. The search is often subconscious; I'll buy a tuna-fish sandwich without thinking much about it and eat it while reading the newspaper at my desk, and halfway through, the miraculous sandwich of my childhood springs to mind, and the invariably disappointing one I'm eating turns to dust in my mouth. Then suddenly (and predictably) I'll crave that sandwich.

Now and then, Ive actually looked for it. I live in England, and over here they put sweet corn in tuna salad. (My son, born and raised in England, thinks there's nothing wrong with sweet corn in tuna, but I love him anyway.) Since no tuna salad made with sweet corn can be considered in the Miracle Tuna Stakes, my searches for a restaurant that will replicate the Swedishes' achievement have been mostly confined to periodic Stateside trips. (Despite the nationality of the owners, I've never searched in Scandinavia. That sandwich was the very definition of All-American.) When I'm Stateside I'm indefatigable. I'm not looking for some fancy bistro. That place in Vermont was the opposite of fancy. In fact, I might find myself, one day peering through the doorway of a hole in the wall with a neon sign in the window flashing, COLD BEER, and think, Hey this might be it!

It never is - even if I wait until I'm as starving as I was that long-lost day. The lettuce is limp; the bread, stale. The tuna is too salty or too gummy-tuna that would be happier still in it's can. Or, at one of those New York downtown joints that pretend to be a diner but never really are (macchiato in a diner? I think not), the tuna might be tricked up, laced with paprika, sprinkled with sesame seeds, served on a brioche when I'd hoped for the stalwart comfort of plain white toast. Even on the rare occasion that sandwich is fine, it's just that-fine.

At this point, I usually turn back to my own kitchen, thinking Surely I can do better myself. I'm a reasonably confident cook, after all, and just how hard can a tuna sandwich be? Plenty hard it turns out, if you are after perfection, chasing a dream.

Sometimes I abandon the search completely, loading my own tuna salads with capers, olives, thinly sliced roasted red peppers, homemade mayo laced with lime, scatterings of fresh coriander leaves. But then I remember what I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm seduced again into trying to replicate the mythic lunch of my youth.

I've decided that both proportion and texture are critical. So to start, I choose tuna packed in oil-none of this slenderizing water nonsense, which leads to tuna that is dryish and tastes like nothing. For Mayo I stick to Hellman's and I think celery is a must-add, though not too much and you do have to destring the pesky stuff. A little salt, a little pepper and maybe a wee squeeze of lemon.

I've come close with this version, but never close enough. Once frustrated, I even threw everything in the food processor, thinking that a few judicious pulses would do the trick. The result was gloop. I've mashed with a fork, I've crumbled with my fingers, I've diced celery so fine you could pass it through a sieve. I've cut the mayo with a spoonful of sour cream. (neat idea no?) and yet.....No matter what I do, the perfect tuna sandwich continues to elude me. The other day I actually considered giving up, though not out of a sense of defeat. I was making a tuna sandwich for my son, standing at the counter pouring, yes, sweet corn kernels into a bowl. I was hungry, but I was'nt sure what for. I thought of my father who died last year. I thought, once again, of the tuna-salad sandwich I ate that day in Vermont, and then of the Volkswagen Beetle, and my parents laughing up front and me rattling around in the back, not wearing a seat belt because no one did it back then. I remember the trees blurred and bending as my Dad took the curves, and the diner appearing like an oasis, and the hollowness in my belly as I waited, at seven years old for my lunch. That day, the place, the drive, my love for my parents, and the feeling, perhaps for the first time in my life, of absolute hunger followed by absolute satiety.

Hunger, of course, never really goes away. The hunger for tuna fish, the hunger for love. And especially a hunger for the perfect moment you wish you could resurrect as easily as you can make a sandwich. But maybe savoring a memory does'nt have to mean reconstructing it. Maybe, in fact, that constant attempt at reconstruction keeps you from relishing what's happening now--now , and next week and next year. So that day, standing in my kitchen, I resolved: I would continue to revel in my most delicious of memories but try to be hungry for, and satisfied by, my life-and even my lunch today-today.