Grilled Tuna Sandwich

Eastside Road, Healdsburg, September 29, 2009—

I HAD A HAMBURGER the other day, as was noted, and, yes, a good hamburger's a fine thing, no question about it. And your BLT is also a fine thing, when made with good bacon, good tomato, good lettuce. And decent mayonnaise, don't forget.
What else. I love a good baloney sandwich, and for years, when I was building our house on various weekends, I'd lunch on a nearly perfect sandwich: two slices mortadella, one slice galantina, a leaf of lettuce, on buttered white bread. (Old Mrs. Bertoli, who lived behind us on Curtis Street back in the 1970s, had a lettuce she called pan di zucchero in her kitchen garden, big oval liver-spotted leaves; it was perfect with baloney.)
But if were to restrict myself to only one sandwich it would certainly be Grilled Tuna.

Yesterday we found a can of albacore tuna, Alcatraz brand, in the local going-out-of-business store; tonight Lindsey mixed it with finely chopped shallot, a little chopped dill pickle, and some mayonnaise she'd bought in a tube in Amsterdam last spring and never opened. She spread the tuna between slices of Pugliese and grilled them in the black iron skillet. Delicious: this must be one of the Hundred Plates.
We had them, as you see, with broad beans and haricots and lima beans, all leftovers from the refrigerator, and a green salad afterward; and there'll be cookies later on. What a wonderful life.

Rosé: Château la Canorgue (Luberon), 2007; cheap Nero d'Avola