I like to think that I'm a little bit sassy and a lotta bit classy.

I spend an unnatural portion of my day thinking about food. Seriously, I do. Entirely too much time. I don't procrastinate on Facebook (okay, I do) but I spend much MORE time trolling the internet for food blogs, Top Chef recaps, and good pictures on flickr's infamous 'food porn' thread. In the last year I've read everything written by and about Anthony Bourdain and have developed a nasty little hetero crush on him. Intellectually, I am something of a foodie. The thing is, I'm usually too broke to dine out or even cook the foods I love. What is a poor, poor foodie to do? Well folks, I, luckily, know my way around the gourmet market well enough to find those key ingredients can elevate a common dish to something more acceptable to my bourgeois palette. So, for now, I must be content to continue reading, dreaming, drooling, and (as you will see) modifying cheap food into something a little bit classy.

Case in point:

I've been trying to detox for the last 3 days. Day 1, I gave up and dug into the free Italian Beef sandwich I was given at work. FAIL. Day 2, I drank a gallon of water and three cups of green tea and ate nothing but cottage cheese, an apple and Kashi cereal (without milk) until dinner--where I proceeded to make a turkey sandwich w/ brown sugar bacon, spinach, mayo and a raspberry vinaigrette drizzle. FAIL. Day 3, that's today, was going to be an automatic fail because I knew I'd be drinking alcohol at a work event AND getting a free dinner, so I decided the hell with it and treated myself to a lunch I could chew. Ever since I watch the 'grilled cheese' episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay, I have been CRAVING a grilled cheese sandwich with turkey, tomato and goat cheese. Today, I decided to finally sate that craving. Unforch, none of the restaurants near my office actually serve that sandwich, so I had to get creative. First, I went to Baci Cafe and got a turkey, mozzarella and tomato panini. Then, I high tailed it over to Presidential Market and bought some goat cheese. In no time at all I was back at my desk slathering goat cheese all over the crusty ciabatta bread. I popped the refurb. into the toaster oven to melt everything together, and let me tell you what--it worked just fine! Classy and delicious. Spot. On.


I enjoyed this sandwich so much that I:

1) was inspired to write a food blog after eating it.

And

2) felt moved to at least take a picture of the carnage.
(Note the telltale goat cheese stained knife)