FOODIE FRIDAY RECIPE - CAPE MAY LOBSTER SANDWICH

Best ever lobster & cheese sandwich!

I recently had the pleasure of a short trip to the New Jersey shore.  No trip to the shore would be complete for me without spending some quality time in Cape May.  Beautiful Cape May is located at southernmost tip of the Garden State and is home to some of the most beautiful historic Victorian homes in the United States.  

For me Cape May is a journey back to my youth.  I have been vacationing there since I was 5 years old.  The beauty of the town is that it never changes.  Businesses come and go but the structures remain intact and as charming as they ever were.  In fact, I think it looks better every year.  I'm rooted in Cape May.  When I'm on the tiny, pristine boardwalk smelling the aroma of roasted nuts from Marrow's Nut House and gazing out across the white sand to the ocean I feel as though time has stood still.

I feel the presence of my parents all around me when I'm in Cape May.  They loved it there.  I watched the first moon landing on a portable black and white TV with my dad while sitting  the steps of the Lafayette Motel which is still there.  The first mini golf courses which sparked my obsession still sparkle.  The church that my mother dragged me to on Sundays, when I would have preferred to be swimming, still watches over the quaint pedestrian mall in the center of town.

On this trip we found ourselves in a local beachfront restaurant for lunch.  This was never one of my "hangouts" as it was usually boisterous and a little too loud with live music and pitchers of beer everywhere but it was convenient and air conditioned.  I looked over the menu and decided on something which sounded odd and oddly interesting.  My Foodie Friday recipes have always been my own or family recipes which have been handed down to me but this week I'm going to share the recipe for that unusual but amazingly delicious lobster & cheese sandwich. This is more about the idea of combining ingredients that you wouldn't necessarily pair and having a truly great surprise.

Ingredients:

good quality grain or ciabatta bread

lobster meat [cooked]

brie

fresh mozzarella

fresh basil leaves

russian dressing

butter

Method:

Make a sandwich by covering the insides of two pieces of bread with the two cheeses.  Top one of the pieces of bread with a lump of lobster meat and then a few leaves of fresh basil.  Add about a tablespoon of russian dressing over the basil and close the sandwich.  Butter the outsides of the sandwich with softened butter and brown in a skillet until toasted on both sides.

This sandwich was halved and arranged on a plate with potato chips and a cup of tomato soup for dunking.  I found the soup to be completely unnecessary and overpowering.  The flavors of the melted cheeses with the hint of sweet from the lobster and Russian dressing work so well with the crisp clean bite of the fresh basil.  This is a gooey, savory elegant sandwich.

MINI GOLF MONDAY

A series for Summer 
[weather permitting]

I'm going to make a confession: I have a Peter Pan complex.  That's right, I don't want to grow up.  As soon as there is a hint of warmth in the air and the sun is shining, my inner child wants to shed this fifty year old body and play.  My thoughts immediately turn to beaches, salty air, candy apples, shorts and amusement parks.  But more than anything I think "mini golf".  I know that regionally some people refer to it as "putt putt" but to me it will always be mini golf.  

My earliest memories of my fascination with the game [game, not sport] are from Cape May, New Jersey.  My family vacationed in that charming Victorian seaside resort.  There is a boardwalk along Beach Avenue with a convention hall, a few stores, Morrow's Nut House, and two arcades.  That's all good but across the street from the boardwalk is the real attraction.  Nestled among the restaurants and surfer shops are two mini golf courses a couple of blocks apart.  One glance from the boards and your eyes are drawn to the giant guardians of the courses.  The ten foot tall bunny, the windmill, the huge [but happy] polar bear are all there calling out to me.  This has remained mostly unchanged.

I was a lucky kid.  I had one particular uncle, Artie, who indulged my curiosity for those bigger-than-life brightly painted characters and crossed Beach Avenue with me and introduced me to mini golf.  Artie wasn't known for his patience but with me and mini golf he had endless patience.  He taught me the fundamentals of the game without bogging me down.  He let me play and experiment and experience for myself with only hints as to what might make me better at the getting that shiny bright ball all the way [maybe 8 feet] down the green carpet, under the creature or up the loop-de-loop, and into the hole!  

I was hooked.  There would never be another summer without a visit to Cape May but more importantly there would never be another summer without mini golf.  For a brief period of my childhood there was a mini golf course one town over from my hometown.  It wasn't as grand as any of those from the New Jersey shore but it was local and it had a frozen custard stand attached as a bonus.  Summer nights of mini golf and lemon ice are about as good as it gets for distraction from the real world. It was a sad Autumn when the custard stand and beloved mini golf course were demolished and replaced with car lot.  

The warm weather has arrived and has once again worked its charm.  My mini golf playmate Carol and I have already begun hitting the local courses.  Over the past couple of years a round of mini golf has become a Sunday ritual.  We usually stay within an hour radius from home and that encompasses quite a few courses for us to choose from.  The courses vary from the kiddy courses with their big characters, reminiscent of those very first courses I played, to the austere, carpeted no-nonsense courses which lull adults into thinking they're more akin to "real" golf.  

My goal for "Monday Mini Golf" is to give reviews and photos of the courses we play along with anecdotes and obligatory rants on the subject of parents not disciplining their misbehaving, screaming children.  

"To live will be a great adventure."

j.m.barrie [peter pan]