Well, this has sort of turned into a week of scary bad news, hasn’t it? First, loved ones are gettin’ stabbed by sandwich-crazed loons, then we find out having too voracious of an appetite for sandwiches (and not chewing very well) is dangerous, and now, the ultimate: sausage sandwiches will kill you. Well, getting loaded to the point of being 5 times the legal limit (which, I assume, in England, is already like double what it is here), and passing out while eating said sausage sandwich, that will kill you. But the immediate nature of that is what worries me, since I am burdened by the crushing reality of how my steady diet of sausage-bacon-guacamole-cheeseburgers will eventually kill me. But that’s not RIGHT NOW.
And I haven’t even mentioned that I’ve had to curtail getting up in the middle of the night and making a peanut butter and banana sandwich (or three) - THAT WILL KILL YOU, TOO!
I’m scared.
One day, people are “accidently” stabbing loved ones while making a sandwich, the next they’re passing out while eating a sandwich and driving. And the culprit was a ham sandwich. Ham sandwiches of the world, haven’t you taken enough from us already???
Now, some people might say that eating while driving is dangerous anyways. To those people, I say: drive-thru! They wouldn’t be allowed to serve food through an easily-accessible-by-car window if it wasn’t perfectly safe to do several things at once while driving, like I’m doing now. Hell, I’m making a PB & J while I tap this out on my iPhone, goin’ 75 down the parkway. Outta the way grandma!!
Just be careful out there taking your very large bites of sandwiches, everybody.
Look, people: sandwiches are dangerous. Don’t leave your children alone with them (especially if you have not properly cut the crust off!), don’t eat a sandwich if it has not been in your possession since you left the house, and don’t go waving your large, sharp sandwich knife (which you need to keep VERY sharp) all willy-nilly around the kitchen.
If proper sandwich safety isn’t observed, bad things can - and WILL - happen. Like, oh, I don’t know, you might stab your longtime companion in the stomach, then eat a ham sandwich - WHICH IS ALL YOU WANTED TO DO IN THE FIRST PLACE, BEFORE THAT IDIOT WALKED INTO YOUR KNIFE. Geez, cops, just relax. They love each other, how about you drop the charges? Done.
I like how the stab victim turned it around: “No, that was ME eating the sandwich, while bleeding, not her. And I wanted to go to bed. It was turkey sandwich, after all - it had nothing to do with that knife wound.”
So Blimpie, whose tagline I’m pretty sure is “America’s favorite alternative to Subway when there’s not a Subway around and they happen to be inside of a Citgo that has a Blimpie“, has given themselves a facelift. But sort of in the Botox/injection/now-you-can’t-make-normal-facial-expressions kind of facelift. They’ve sucked all the life out of a second tier, quirky sandwich brand. And will not impress, nor make anyone forget about this.
Here’s the old and new version, from Brand New:
AKA The Roethlisburger, named after the youngest-ever-Super-Bowl-winning quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the winningest rookie QB ever, and also the holder of the best record for any quarterback in his first five years in the NFL, my man and yours, Ben Roethlisberger.
Your feeling about the man himself aside, this is a beautiful sandwich. As Peppi’s describes it themselves, “a sausage and burger juggernaut topped with egg, american cheese.” Peppi’s is great at combining 2 different meats to outstanding effect (see the Big Nate - a chicken and steak combo - and well named, to boot), and the #7 carries on the tradition, like James Harrison as a Steelers LB. It’s been a city favorite since it debuted Big Ben’s rookie year, and going on a Friday before a big game (like today) is always a bit of an ordeal. We’ve figured out to order early, and go pick it up (we’re geniuses, by the way).
And this is the goodness that ensued:
(not my picture, I can’t take credit for it. I had no camera, other than my dreadfully not-as-cool-as-an-iPhone phone)
Fresh bread, slightly spicy sausage, and surprisingly good tomatoes all put into perfectly proportioned, very well crafted sandwich form. I think that last part is an important aspect of what makes Peppi’s Old Tyme Sandwich Shop great (aside from the “y” in Tyme), and that’s craftsmanship. The sandwich doesn’t come close to falling apart. And I was watching the kids put them all together. They care. It’s like it’s their life work. Peppi’s might be more Pittsburgh than Primanti’s. Actually, not might be, is.
5 out of 5 frilly toothpicks.
