One of these weeks I’m going to have an opportunity to interview Top Chef contestant Stefan Richter. My first question will concern his guilty pleasure food: an onion and mayo sandwich. Jennifer Aniston once admitted to eating mayo sandwiches and I’ve even heard of fried chicken skin sandwiches, but mayo and onion? I learned of this from my phone conversation with recently eliminated chef Micah Fields, who couldn’t have been friendlier or funnier (and less cocky than he came off on the series).
And what of his confrontation with Josie Smith-Malave? Micah explains that the argument was much longer and detailed than the show revealed—it ultimately led to Josie telling the L.A. chef he was a closet case. His main concern was that “I just didn’t want to come off looking like a tool” (he didn’t). Micah adds that she never apologized and that she’s not the type who would be capable of admitting fault. My Top Chef roundup can be found at weeklystandard.com.
My mother, grandmother to your lovely wife, adored having onion and mayo sandwiches (light on the mayo). The secret seemed to be in soaking the onion in vinegar for about 1/2 hour prior to making the sandwich. Could this be a treat left from her days in Berlin? I don’t know, but confess that as children this habit grossed us out beyond any other quirk of hers.