DATE: Thursday, April 24, 1997              TAG: 9704240362

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Guy Friddel 

                                            LENGTH:   51 lines

A SUMMER DELIGHT TO RELISH: TOMATO SANDWICHES

Now that April is starting to shake off the last fetters of winter, we may begin to mull over tomato sandwiches.

(By the way, the first undeniable spring day of April ought to arrive about May 5.)

My view - that now is the time for all good men (and women, too, and little chil'ren, and the family dog) to talk about tomato sandwiches - is bolstered by a letter from Thelma Harding of Northumberland County on the Northern Neck.

For two years, she notes, ever since reading my six instructions on how to assemble a simple tomato sandwich, she has been meaning to write about one step that was overlooked.

(Thelma, next time you have a noble impulse, please don't dally two years. Call at any hour, and I will reverse the charges, and we will talk to our hearts' content.)

Only one of my six specifications for building a tomato sandwich comes to mind. That was my advising you to apply the mayonnaise to the bottom slice of the bread.

And how, you may ask, does one identify the lower slice of two pieces of bread lying separately before you?

Why, my dear friend, that's easy. It is the one on which you happen to spread the mayonnaise - flip a coin - leaving to the second slice, inevitably, the role of being topmost.

That is the way life is, now and then. Our roles are thrust upon us.

My point was that you must not, on any account, wait until the sandwich is well nigh complete, topped by lettuce, and then apply mayonnaise to the second, remaining slice, and slap it atop the lettuce.

Lettuce and mayonnaise just don't bond easily. They don't mesh at all.

Under the impact of the unmanageable, impervious lettuce, the mayonnaise won't blend. It squishes from between the edges of the bread slices onto your fingers or chin or favorite tie. You'll have a mess on your hands.

In building a tomato sandwich, one should not even wear a tie - or frothy collar, if you're a woman. No telling when the thing might disassemble in your face.

Now Thelma steps forward on a way to keep the sandwich intact and the tomato slices in place.

``It's very simple to keep it all together,'' she writes.

``Just make the slices of tomato thicker on one side and arrange the thicker parts on the outer edges of the slice of bread. You'll get the hang of it after you make several sandwiches.''

Admirable! Why haven't I thought of that basic technique in construction?

I can hardly wait for the first garden-fresh tomato to build it to Thelma's specifications.

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