Today the kitchen was bare, and yet I still had to make and eat a lunch at some point. Often in this situation I end up just eating bread and cheese, but not this time, since we were actually out of cheese! Oh no! Such a thing rarely happens, because we eat all kinds of cheese. So what could I do instead? I rummaged around in the cabinets, becoming more and more horrified by our lack of basic staples (no peanut butter?!), until I came up with this: the mushroom sandwich.

I was kind of dubious here. How could a mushroom sandwich be enough to fuel me through a day of work with highly energetic kids? I thought I'd probably have to go buy some sort of last-minute drugstore supplement, like string cheese or saltines. Then I realized that there was cream cheese in the work refrigerator.

Mushroom sandwich

2 or 3 big button mushrooms
1 green onion's greens
wheat bread
decent mustard
cream cheese
black pepper

Sandwiches are easy. Cut your mushrooms into thick slices and your onion greens into 3-inch strips, so as to fit inside the bread. Mustard up one slice of bread; cream cheese and pepper the other. Layer the mushrooms and onion greens on the bread, top with the other slice, and eat.

Some people may be into toasted sandwiches. I am generally not one of them. I think that the softness of the bread is one of the essential things about a sandwich like this, especially one relying on such a soft filling (cream cheese, although I guess mushrooms are kind of soft...I would call them something else, like "chewy" or "robust"). It's very comforting to eat something so soft, and besides, it doesn't rip the skin off the roof of your mouth like a toasted sandwich would do. There: my major issue with sandwiches, exposed!! ! Gracious. Now it's going to be on the 11 o'clock news. I'm going to have to start wearing horrendous dark sunglasses and drinking eight dollar half-caf lattes, or something.