Oggi, per pranzo, ho mangiato un panino del formaggio.

Thursday Cheese Sandwich blogging, late. I don't know if we're continuing to do this, but there are enough good cheese sandwiches around to make it worth the effort of keeping at it. BTW, if that Italian sucks, I got it on Babelfish. From what I still retain of one semester of Italian, it sounds reasonable to me. :G:

I stopped at The Fruit Basket on the way home from San Rafael the other day, and I bought a lot of goodies. Among them was a large, hot salame (P. G. Molinari and Sons, SF), and sweet Italian red onion. I had some fresh Mozzarella and sourdough bread at home, and, voila, or whatever the Italian equivalent of that is (ecco???), a cheese sandwich with moxie.

Fresh mozzarella is usually paired with tomatoes or roasted red peppers, which are foils in color and in flavor. I wasn't in the mood for either of those, though, and I had something red I did feel like eating - the hot salame. That gave me hot-salty and bland flavors. So, sliced sweet red onion gave me another color contrast, as well as another dynamic to the flavor and texture - crunchy as opposed to soft or chewy.

I made the sandwich open faced because it's pretty that way, and another thick slab of bread on top was just more than I wanted. I drizzled a little olive oil over the top, added a healthy squeeze of lemon juice (1/2 a lemon's worth) and a sprinkling of sea salt. Ordinarily, I'd have ground on some pepper, but using hot salame made that superfluous. Some chopped fresh parsley or basil would have added a fresh zing to the other, heavier flavors, but I didn't have any fresh - next time. It was a wonderfully complex group of flavors and textures, and I'll definitely do this one again. Maybe I'll go all crazy and do it not even on a Thursday.

Camera rant: Now, if I had a decent camera, that would have been a gorgeous picture. I so hate posting these crap pics, but it's either that or no pics. I used to sell my photos. I had shows of my photos. Grrrrr. These are just so ugly.

Those of you who, like me, grew up with SLRs that were actually adjustable probably know what I mean, but I'm so frustrated with this dang camera, which is indeed a digital SLR. However, for me, one of the big points of the non-digital SLR is the ability to focus at will, by turning a focusing ring.

How can you make a camera with no way to focus it, except to sway in the breeze until things become clear??? Now they want to focus for you. Only my camera obviously needs corrective lenses. I get everything into focus, push the button, it does it's little half click where it adjusts the light and focus, putting everything out of focus, then finishes the click, giving me a lovely, out-of-focus pic. So, for me to get a focused pic is just dumb luck and forget about aesthetics.

I've got a new Kodak, after swearing I'd never buy another product from the sucking Kodak company, and I've given myself many a virtual head slap for getting talked into this. The Olympus with extra lenses was only $200 more. I love all my Olympus cameras. I don't think they can make a bad camera. Why, oh, why do I do this to myself??? What are some of you shooting?

Pete Wells Loves Cheese Sandwiches