Let me back up. Last night I made chicken piccata. Which I make regularly and have blogged about before. It's stunningly delicious; butter, wine, fresh lemon juice and parsley - how can you go wrong? But the truly secret weapon is the caper. As I reached into the fridge to grab the jar of capers I panicked to see there was only like two capers in the jar! Impossible! Capers are one of those items I ALWAYS have on hand. Thankfully, I found another jar in the fridge door and all faith in mankind was restored. So, naturally, I found myself thinking about how much I love capers, leading me to my FB caper love declaration, which led to a discussion about what, exactly, is a caper? Which led to Jacquie remembering that she in fact blogged about the mighty caper once. Hilarious. I love my family.
You still with me?
Good, because this is becoming perilously close to a turkey sandwich, which Jacquie alluded to in that blog.
What on God's green earth are you talking about, you ask? Let me explain.
The Turkey Sandwich is what you call that ill-conceived story, the kind when you have the floor and you suddenly realize that you have everyone's attention but it's really not that good of a story. That story when you wish you hadn't started but now you have to save face and finish. And there's that awkward silence or polite chuckle. THAT, my friends, is a Turkey Sandwich. Because in that awkward moment it's super helpful for someone to break the awkward silence with, "would you like mayo with that turkey sandwich?" or, "Nice turkey sandwich. Delicious."
My college roommates and I coined that expression my second year at UVA.
It's really helpful to have a term for this social debacle, so we all latched right onto it. So I brought it home to my family, who also latched right onto it, as we are wont to do. And it became a thing.
But my favorite part of the turkey sandwich story? Toward the end of that year, when my roomies and I were all sitting around the kitchen table in that apartment on 15th Street, I told a turkey sandwich, and got called out, and we all laughed, and then I said, "why do we call it a turkey sandwich, anyway?" They all three looked at me like I had two heads. I can still see all of their faces turned to me in astonishment. Laura said, "You don't remember?" At which point they reminded me that one day early in the year I had come home from lunch apparently very enthusiastic about a turkey sandwich I had eaten, and told everyone all about it. In great detail. For much too long.
The Turkey Sandwich was born.
I had enthusiastically spread the phrase far and wide, not realizing I was, in fact, mocking myself. Classic.
So. You've stuck with me this long. I've told you a really long, inside-baseball, somewhat boring story. And here we are.
Pass the mustard, please.
Love love love this post. For obvious reasons. It turns out, we all have coined expressions in each other's families and scarcely know it. For instance, the Cirellis occasionally say to each other "How can you go wrong with a Honey Baked Ham?!" (something I once said and have no memory of), Jon and I say "mmm, tacos, riff" when eating tacos (something Ed Creskoff once spelled on our fridge in refrigerator magnets) and any time I wear white pants I slap my butt and say "White pants, girls!!" with some swagger (a tribute to something Rebecca's grandmother once said). Life is grand.
ReplyDeleteWait..."mmm, tacos riff" is something I started? My apologies to the world.
ReplyDelete"Turkey Sandwich" is a much needed word. The English-speaking public is searching for a word to fulfill this need, but haven't yet been exposed to the perfect word: turkey sandwich.
http://wordsmith.org/board/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=187619
Where a shaggy dog is a long, boring joke with a punch line that doesn't payoff the audience's investment, the turkey sandwich has no punch line, which then _becomes_ the punch line. The turkey sandwich teller by accepting that she is now the butt of an unintended joke has redeemed the entertainment value of the story for the audience.
I have told many a turkey sandwich, oddly enough, one was about an actual turkey sandwich.--Ed C.
Ed, that is beyond perfect.
ReplyDelete