The Chicken and the Egg Salad Sandwich

Fact: Food is comforting. Fact: Some foods are more comforting than other foods. My comfort foods of choice have always centered around the chicken. My last meal on earth will be a multi course affair with every course containing chicken or its close friend, the egg. My weekly staple from the farmer’s market is a rotisserie chicken and a dozen eggs. My favorite easy and fast lunch is a bowl of instant chicken-flavored ramen soup with a poached egg poured into a large soup bowl full of baby spinach. I make a quick oven fried potato dish in a cast iron pan (recipe later this month) and right before pulling it out of the oven, I crack some eggs on top and let them bake right into the potatoes.

I have been thinking a lot about chicken lately because I have been in need of deep comfort for the past month. Elders have died. A close friend is ill. Never before have I craved these foods so deeply nor have I found the eating of these foods so healing. I have eaten out of boredom before, but never out of the need to heal. Lucky for me I know of a bakery across the bay in Oakland where amongst the standard bakery fare of cookies, cakes and pies are two rather improbable offerings: fried chicken sandwiches and egg salad sandwiches. Odd, no? Is it any surprise that I have been spending a lot of time there? I wonder if the owners of this small bakery realize just how much more than pies, cookies and fried chicken sandwiches they are providing. If the length of the line out the door is any indication, I am not the only one stopping in to get a dose of comfort.

Comfort and healing aside, their fried chicken sandwich is a taste and texture odyssey that plays out on so many different sensory levels. A fresh, real (not pre-fab) chicken breast half is battered and deep fried until the outside has formed a golden crust and the inside is cooked through but still moist. The piece of crunchy hot chicken is then placed in a large, soft roll, and smothered with coleslaw. Not mayonnaise based coleslaw. No, this is fresh, vinegar and oil based coleslaw with lots of slivered jalapenos and chopped parsley. As you bite into this huge sandwich (carefully wrapped in paper, then sliced in half and wrapped again), your teeth first sink through the soft roll, then hit the crunchy crust of the warm, juicy chicken.