Hello there, fellow sandwich enthusiasts! We’re about two months into 2011 and I’ve stuck with my only New Year’s resolution. That is, eat more sandwiches! I was inspired to make this resolution after a great many delicious sandwiches during Winter 2010. I’m sure many of you had some great sandwiches during this time as well. It’s not a coincidence! Winter is one of the best seasons for sandwiches. My experience included a garden burger at the neighborhood pub, a tuna melt at a fancy hipster joint, and too many peanut-butter and jam to count! The great sandwich streak pushed me to make 2011 the year of the sandwich. Stick with me during the year of the rabbit and your taste buds won’t regret it.

Surprisingly, I have never written about my absolute favorite sandwich chip before! That is, Sun Chips! Sun Chips are my favorite because they crunch well, aren’t too greasy and come in many delicious flavors; I especially enjoy Harvest Cheddar and French Onion. Dear reader, do you have a favorite chip or crisp? Why not mention it by commenting below? I might feature it in an upcoming review!

I've written about Field Roast's Celebration Roast before and it remains one of my favorite vegan-friendly foods. A great way to enjoy Celebration Roast is in a CAT Sandwich! That is, Celebration Roast, Avocado and Tomato. You can garnish this sandwich with many condiments: hummus, mustard, hot sauce, or tofu pate. Tonight I have barbecue sauce and mayonnaise and used Vermont Bread Company's Soft 10 Grain sandwich bread. Heating up the roast in a toaster oven adds a few minutes to the prep time but is worth it! Overall, this sandwich is simple, delicious and filling.

Final score (out of five):

11/??/1995 - 10/26/2010
You were my everything. I love you.

Hey there, fellow soldiers! It's been quite the long while since I've shared some good old Beck cuisine with you; I'm very sorry for that. You have all been in my thoughts. It's a Sunday night just past the cusp of fall here in downstate New York. While we celebrate the fall harvest, we also remember the pleasant times of the summer months. This meal is about each of these things, and all of them!

After learning a fantastic recipe for iced tea courtesy of an internet hero, I could barely go a humid summer day without some! I'm talking breakfast, lunch and dinner. Iced tea tastes great and has a smooth dose of caffeine with less sugar than soda. This tea (preferably consumed over a few cubes of ice in a mason jar) is in my permanent rotation.

Though I'm sad to see summer go, cool weather brings about soup season! This being a sunday night, I simply popped the top of a can of Campbell's vegetarian vegetable. I spiced things up with a few squirts of Sriracha Thai pepper sauce. I'm looking forward to bean chili's and hearty winter stews of my own creation. Plan on reading more about one of these in the coming season!

Let's round things out with a tuna sandwich. I don't have to explain much here; it's a staple in this house. The specs are: solid albacore in oil, mayo, mustard, chopped celery and pepper. This all goes onto some toasted whole grain bread. This is an easy, nutritional meal than anyone can enjoy at home. While Fall comes every year, I will enjoy looking back on this post for many Falls to come.

Since the April 20th explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig, massive amounts of oil have been spewing out of the ruptured oil well. Executives are testifying before Congress, and the battle of public opinion is currently being waged. Who should be blamed? Who should you hate? Well, wyvern920 is here with all the answers, as always.

There are three possible companies to blame that are involved with this mess: BP, Halliburton, and Transocean. BP is an oil company, Halliburton is a domestic oil driller (and in no way deals with Iraq or Afghanistan. You're probably thinking of KBR, which was spun off of Halliburton in 2007 – apparently because they had a poor reputation for some reason), and Transocean is the company that leases the oil rigs. BP leased the oil rig from Transocean, and hired Halliburton to perform the drilling procedures. Transocean also assists Halliburton with the day-to-day operations. Schlumberger provides the drills to Halliburton used in the excavation for the oil rig that Transocean leases to BP. The oil that is collected is property of BP, who sells it on the futures market. Confused yet? Good. All you need to know is that it's BP's fault, because I don't really like BP. There are just some companies that I dislike immensely, even though they've never done anything to me, and BP is one of them. Seriously, they can eat a bag of it.

Lost in this discussion is the real impact of the oil spill. No, it doesn't stress the need to switch to green technology, including solar and wind. Who cares that animal habitat is being decimated? I don't really care that the economy of Louisiana is being adversely affected. I'm glad that the white sand beaches of Alabama are being tarnished. No, what's really the tragedy in all this is the loss of all that precious oil. America salutes you, wasted and unburned freedom fuel.

It was six years ago today that Wyvern920's Homepage made its very first post at 12:22 AM. Some other important events on this day: New Coke was released on an unsuspecting public, the Polish Constitution was adopted, and the birth of Roy Orbison. In fact, a lot of famous people were born on this day: Lee Mayors, Joyce DeWitt, Michael Moore, George Lopez, Barry Watson, Kal Penn, and John Oliver. What a glorious day in history.

You might have noticed some work that has been done on this website in the past couple of months. The first thing I did was retooled the 'Archive' section by adding the ability to navigate the calendar by month-to-month and year-to-year. The '<' & '>' will allow you to view month-to-month, while the '<<' & '>>' will allow you to view year-by-year. Pretty sweet, eh? The second and most important piece of work done was the reconfiguration of the comments; now the comments here are completely in-house, and controlled by me, wyvern920. Here is what to do:

Name: This is where your name goes. Duh.
Email: This is where your email goes. Duh. I've done my best to make the emails protected, so you won't be inundated with spam. You can rest assured knowing that this site won't be responsible for those Viagra emails you receive.
URL: This is where your website goes. Duh.
Pic URL: This is where you specify the URL of the avatar you would like to display in the comments. Please make the avatar 60 x 60 pixels. If you are a regular poster to this dear website, email me and I can host your picture and supply you with a short phrase that you can enter in the Pic URL field that will simplify the process.
Comment: This is where you enter your comment praising my website and my awesomeness. Duh.
Verification: Just enter the captcha code. I hate it as much as you do, but life is about doing things that you hate until you die. Deal with it.

That should do it. Notice that my avatar is a drinking bird, because I am spicy like that. The default avatar is the crazyforyou heart, so unless you want that to be your legacy, I suggest you pick one yourself. For those of you who enjoy RSS feeds, the RSS feed for my comments can be found here. Also my Twitter account feed can be found here. I hate myself.

It has also come to my attention that my website looks terrible in Firefox and Internet Explorer. For the record, I use Internet Explorer because I am a bad nerd. I apparently have a strange version, because my website looks bad in every other copy of IE except mine. I don't really care all that much, because I don't have to look at it, but this is what my website looks like on my computer. It looks fine on my computer, and that's all that matters. Meh.

Alex Chilton, one of the pioneers of pop/rock music and power pop, has died at the age of 59. He passed away yesterday from suspected heart problems in a New Orleans hospital. With his untimely passing, the world just got a lot less joyful. I keep hitting 'refresh' with the hopes that there will be a retraction, but it's appearing less and less likely that is going to happen. It's going to be a difficult couple of days.

Chilton was born in Memphis, Tennessee in December of 1950. He rose to fame when a local band that later would be known as the Box Tops recruited him to be their lead singer. Their breakthrough song, "The Letter", became a #1 hit in 1967 when Chilton was only 16 (and recorded when he was only 15, which proves that life isn't fair). The group recorded a few more hits before disbanding and pursuing individual solo careers in early 1970.

It was at this point that Chilton and fellow Memphis musician Chris Bell together formed the influential power-pop group Big Star. Their first album, #1 Record is 37 minutes and 3 seconds of musical perfection. Every single song, note, and beat contained on the record is pure unadulterated musical brilliance. Some of the high points include "In The Street", which would later be covered by Cheap Trick and used as the theme song to That '70s Show. "The Ballad of El Goodo" is another song that is a perfect synchronization of melody and lyrics, with backing harmonies reminiscent of Brian Wilson. "Thirteen" is described by Rolling Stone (even a broken clock is right twice a day) as "one of rock's most beautiful celebrations of adolescence", and to me perfectly represents the expression of young love and music. Numerous musicians, including Garbage, Wilco, and Elliott Smith have covered it. "When My Baby's Beside Me" is another song that I can't go on enough about. Despite the many positive reviews, the album failed to gain widespread commercial success, mostly due to the incompetent marketing and management of Stax Records. Chris Bell left the group after the first album due to the limited commercial success, but also partly due to power dynamic in the band.

Big Star followed up their debut record in 1974 with Radio City, an effort that garnered the same amount of critical praise, but also had the same amount of commercial failure, due to the incompetence of their new label, Ardent Records. Chris Bell temporary rejoined the group and contributed to the songs "O My Soul" and "Back of a Car".

However, it was a little song that came in at just 2:47 called "September Gurls" that would alter my life forever. The timbre and tone of the guitar combined with the enigmatic lyrics caused a resonation deep inside my psyche that I still get chills/tears over. I've spent days and nights listening to the song on repeat. I've spent days and nights strumming the same chord progression endlessly. Some people might snicker at the thought of putting so much thought and trust and emotion in a single song, but those people are plebes. Sometimes a song is all you've got, and all you'll have, you know? As John Borack writes in Shake Some Action: The Ultimate Power Pop Guide:

"'September Gurls' was and is the sine qua non of power pop, a glorious, glittering jewel with every facet cut and shined to absolute perfection. While The Raspberries' 'Go All The Way' provides a definitive encapsulation of what power pop is, 'September Gurls' goes even further, not so much as the embodiment of a genre, but as a peerless, aching distillation of love and longing. 'September Gurls' may not actually be the greatest song ever recorded, but for the duration of its 2:47 running time, you can be forgiven for believing it is."

The band never recovered from the second album; Alex Chilton recorded a third album under the Big Star name called Third/Sister Lovers, but it contained a different sound, and was not deemed to be commercially viable. It would take three more years until the album would even see release. Chris Bell died in a car accident in 1978. He had dealt with depression stemming from repressed homosexuality that he tried to cope with through Christianity. Alex Chilton recorded several solo albums and had some minor hits, but nothing that rivaled that of the critical success of Big Star. A modified Big Star lineup has performed sporadically since 1993, mostly motivated by interest generated by bands that list Big Star as an influence, including Cheap Trick, R.E.M., The Replacements (they recorded a song simply called "Alex Chilton" in honor of him), the Posies, Velvet Crush, and Tinted Windows – and basically any band that dares to call themselves power-pop.

This sucks. I feel empty, numb, and wanting to vomit since reading this morning that Alex Chilton died – it's like your best friend dying. It's only a feeling that other people who love music more than existence can understand. I mean, how do you talk about someone who basically saved your life? I never had the chance to see Big Star (the modified version), but even if I did get the chance to meet Alex Chilton, I wouldn't know how to summarize how much his music meant to me – some things are beyond time and words. I've been looking up YouTube videos of all of Big Star's songs, and I've been reading all the comments directed at Alex Chilton, and trying not to cry. It's not working. As corny and cliché as it sounds, having people praise your music on an Internet site isn't a bad legacy to leave. We could all do a lot worse. Goodbye Alex.

Oh, and for those wondering, the web service that managed my comments went bust, so there'll be no comments until I code my own comment system. I saved them all, so they are not lost, and they will be back. You'll have to keep your snark to yourself in the meantime.

Earlier this week I found myself with a hodgepodge of ingredients. Leftover tomatoes from making tomato soup. Hoagie buns from a work-related event. Aging cheddar from a bout with grilled cheese sandwiches. I decided it was a great time to make some parmigiana-style sub sandwiches.

To prepare the sauce, I started with a couple pounds of plum tomatoes. I cut out the stems and removed the skin by boiling them for about a minute each. After that, I sauteed onions and whole cloves of garlic in olive oil. Once the onions caramelized, I added my tomato mixture: paste and diced from a can and the fresh, skinless that I just prepared. I let this bubble over a low heat for about two hours.

One of the strengths of this sandwich is the ease of assembly, once the ingredients are prepared. Simply toast the hoagie, lay some warm meat (or meat substitute, as I did) on the bun, add cheese (optional), cover in sauce and top with parmesan cheese. The sandwich is much more visually pleasing if toasted once complete. I put mine in a toaster oven for a few minutes.

Overall, this sandwich was good. I enjoy the experience of mixing leftovers into something interesting. I was disappointed by the tomato & basil pizza burgers. I have purchased these twice and do not like them. They are heavily spiced and infused with mozzarella cheese, which sounds tasty, but ends up feeling out of place. I prefer to add cheese and spices myself. My favorite part about this sandwich was the toasting. It gives the sandwich a great look.

Final score (out of five):

Well, friends, it's that time of year again. I hope you are all enjoying a romantic evening with your loved ones as much as I enjoy my romantic evening with chocolates, a bottle of wine and soy dogs.

In the spirit of posting a hilarious link that will warm hearts, I want to share the writings of Smoove B, Love Man, self-proclaimed "king of seduction" and lover of succulent strawberries dipped in fine chocolate. He shows us the true meaning of love, which goes much further than Valentine's Day. Enjoy.

Director Quentin Tarantino is known for creating fake products for his films. Pulp Fiction features the Big Kahuna Burger, a Hawaiian-style hamburger restaurant in Los Angeles. Jules (Samuel L Jackson) samples a Big Kahuna Burger, exclaiming "Mmmm, this is a tasty burger!" The audience begs to know what makes the Big Kahuna Burger so tasty. I was shocked to find that still frames and product mock-ups show a double cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato and pickles on a sesame bun - but no pineapple! The mystery of the Big Kahuna Burger continues; I'll tell you how I made the Real Big Kahuna Burger.

The vital ingredients in this burger are pineapple and pickle. A thick slice of pineapple makes a savory sandwich slightly sweet. I chose thinly sliced bread and butter pickles since they are sweet and tangy. I prefer to keep my burgers vegetarian - at this point you may deviate if you wish. The featured patty is a Morningstar Farms "Grillers Original." Also appearing are sliced tomato and mozzarella. I'm sure cheddar, havarti or swiss would be equally delicious. Rounding out this setup are Heinz ketchup, dijon mustard and a potato bun, which I toasted.

A classic side to the hamburger is fries. These are very easy to make! Wash russet potatoes, slice them until they look like french fries. Skin removal is optional; I went about 50/50. Put them on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, paprika, onion powder and garlic power. Bake for 45 minutes at 450 degrees.

The greatest strength of the hamburger is its consistency. Short of burning ingredients, it is hard to screw up a home made burger. In my opinion, if you pay attention to having crispy vegetables, cheese and a hot patty, you are in for a winner. My Big Kahuna Burger was a great success. The pineapple introduces unique flavor to the sandwich. I found the mozzarella to be a great choice for cheese; it is mild and has complementary texture. I would like to thank Quentin Tarantino for giving me this idea. Hopefully a future film will reveal the truth about the Big Kahuna Burger.

Final score (out of five):