Every weekend I have the same debate with my boyfriend.  What to eat for lunch?  I want something that comes with a side of fries and he wants a sandwich.  I can’t knock sandwiches.  They are filling, delicious, cheap, and the variety of available sandwiches in this city is staggering. Every ethnicity seems to have a meal that involves meat in some bread.  I even like the veggie only sandwiches, spread with hummus and wrapped with a warm pita.  I, for one, could really get behind something like an all sandwich tour of Chicago neighborhoods.  But, my boyfriend, who will henceforth be known as Jared, just wants a turkey sandwich on wheat bread.  Hold the mayonnaise, hold the cheese, and hold the fun.  Jared can hold his own, and certainly provides some good arguments to counter my own anti-turkey rhetoric.  Such as, he would like to live past 60, we had a giant deep dish pizza for dinner last night, we just ate breakfast one hour ago, etc, etc.  I happen to think there is a reason that you never see a restaurant advertising “Chicago’s Best Turkey Sandwich.”  Nobody cares.  My current willingness to join in the turkey sandwich lunch program is a huge step forward for me.   When we met I fell exclusively into the camp of people who thought eating a quarter pound burger topped with an Italian sausage patty, bacon, cheddar, and grilled onions still counted as eating a “sandwich.”  Unfortunately, as I get older and can’t eat “everything” I want to anymore, I have to acknowledge the wisdom of popping into the local sandwich store and just getting a turkey sandwich.  I’m not one to hold the cheese, but it’s still a generally healthy lunch and I’m not starving half an hour later.  Alas, I have yet to find a place where I can get a side of fries with it.

By:

Rachel Ford