Mini Story, Musing

RDP Saturday: sandwich

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Today at RDP, we are asked to share a
story, poem, photo, painting, essay, etc.,
focusing on the word ‘sandwich’. Here’s my take.

Sausage & Peppers on Italian Bread
© Serious Eats

Il Panino

My mother was an excellent cook specializing in food from Italy and her hometown in Sicily. Meals in my childhood home were always a event. Whatever my mother served, we ate …. without question. There were no exceptions and that’s undoubtedly the reason why I am not a picky eater. While attending school, my lunch was an adventure and usually consisted of leftovers from dinner. While my classmates were eating ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread or the ubiquitous squashed PB&J, I would be enjoying fried potatoes and eggs or a chicken cutlet lightly sprinkled with vinegar …. sandwiches on fresh Italian bread. At first the other kids in school eyed my lunches with derision and suspicion; I was the “immigrant kid”, even though I was born in The Bronx! But after a few days of sniffing the aromas emanating from my lunch bag, suspicion morphed into curiosity. One day a particularly brave girl approached me and inquired about my lunch. She was practically drooling as she offered to trade her PB&J (something I’d never had!) for my sausage and pepper sandwich. After a while, the phrase “I wonder what Nancy’s got for lunch today!” became commonplace in the school lunchroom. Meanwhile, I couldn’t wait to get home to tell my mother she had to buy something called “peanut butter and jelly”!

NAR©2025

This is “That’s Amore” by Dean Martin

RDP SATURDAY: SANDWICH

All text and graphics are copyright for Nancy Richy and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

43 thoughts on “RDP Saturday: sandwich”

  4. Did you make that trade? I would have loved to trade for a sausage and peppers sandwich (I still would). I remember the suspicious looks. I would often have meat pies or pockets with scrambled egg, or, on a really bad day, spinach. But they were so good, I would never have traded them.

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    1. If memory serves correctly, we traded halves. Keep in mind, I’d never tasted a PB&J before so for me it was like ambrosia. I see we are culinary kindred spirits! I loved the lunches my mother prepared for me but they ended (for the most part) when I was in high school and we were allowed to leave the campus for lunch. We’d cross the street to the coffee shop for burgers or Luigi’s pizza for a slice. Great times! Thanks, Dan.

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      1. We had a full lunch, with lunch ladies and lots of really good or really horrible food! Depended on who was cooking I guess. There was wonderful mac and cheese or awful. Our milk when I was in the first couple of grades came in little miniature glass milk bottles! Much better for the brain than the microplastics they serve the kids now.

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    1. Hilarious! I can relate. My cousins in Australia brought jars of Vegemite with them when they visited years ago. Of course, I tried it and had a reaction very close to the one described by Amanda Palmer in this very funny video. Thanks for the great share, dear Ivor. 🥰

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    1. Thanks, Ange. My classmates went wild the day I brought in arancini! 😂 Lunch was always a surprise and definitely delicious. Mom actually was ok with the PB&J; I guess she figured it was inevitable. I remember she used the empty jelly jars as little vases for the flowers I picked. Thanks for another memory. ☺️

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  10. Delightful story, Nancy! Thank you for sharing, making my mouth water, thinking about a friend of mine, an Italian also from The Bronx with a sauce so rich and delicious it could be smelled down the street. Amazing! The first time I had true Italian was at her place. 🍅🎶👏🏻 Cheers to Italian and Sicilian women who know how to cook and nourish their families, deliciously! I admire the effort that goes into cooking at that level.

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    1. My grandmother always said good cooking starts from the heart and I agree with that. A lot of love goes into meal preparation, even if it’s not totally from scratch. Food satisfies one of our basic needs but also nourishes the heart and soul. Taking time to share a meal, whether it’s Christmas roast or pizza before soccer practice, helps keep families together. Thanks for leaving such a wonderful comment, Michele. ☺️

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      1. Oh yes, I love that and my grandmothers had different styles (southern and midwestern) but similar philosophies. My pleasure and thank you for reminding me of all those delicious meals made by my talented friend. 🍲

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  13. I had a friend who prepared a packed lunch for her husband of four sandwiches, but they had to have different fillings. his favourite was jam, which he saved to last (dessert I suppose).
    I had one sandwich at school, my favourite being boiled egg which tended to whiff a bit. Mum usually did me cheese and pickle one day…….. I was not a fan of pickle and would rather have had onion!, ham another, a paste of some description for a third, bananas a fourth and fifth option was a cucumber spread which was mayo based.

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