
Not only is the
Reuben one of my favorite sandwiches, but it's also sort of magical, since it takes three ingredients I'm not wild about (corned beef, rye bread, and thousand island dressing) and turns them into deliciousness. But since I rarely eat thousand island dressing, it ends up spoiling every time I buy it to make Reubens. So to meet my latest craving for this classic sandwich, I altered the recipe slightly, replacing the dressing with spicy mustard and the corned beef with pastrami.Pastrami is actually a variation on corned beef that involves smoking the meat.

When it comes to
sandwiches — or anything, really — it's hard to go wrong with
melted cheese and tomato. Add a few leaves of fresh arugula and chicken cooked to moist perfection on an outdoor grill, and you've got a hot sandwich that showcases the best flavors of the warm months.
I enjoyed this melted panini on a recent weekend away with friends, where the house we rented handily had a panini maker. Better yet, it had a charcoal grill (which I do not have), so I got the rare treat of a sandwich made with chicken grilled fresh over charcoal.

Perhaps it's no surprise that when I host a party, I like to serve some type of sandwich. (You know, like a
Caesar wrap at an Ides of March party.) The easiest thing to do is make one long party sub then slice it into individual servings. If you're serving the sandwich as a way to soak up booze (which is often the case at my parties), you can't go wrong with a salty but simple combination of salami, cheese, and pickles.

I love a good brunch, and not surprisingly, I'm also fond of ordering breakfast sandwiches. Both experiences are even better following a night of overindulgence. After attending a very long party on Saturday night, I stopped at San Francisco's
Kate's Kitchen and was delighted to see an item had been added to the menu since my last visit: The Lauren Special.This egg and sausage sandwich is way better than your basic breakfast biscuit.

When I opened my fridge the other day and saw fig preserves and almond butter, I thought, "that's like the Mediterranean equivalent of peanut butter and jelly!" Remembering that I also had a block of feta cheese, I took that glimmer of an idea and came up with something weirder: a Mediterranean-inspired marriage of a PB&J and a grilled cheese. I spread the fig jelly and almond butter on apple-walnut bread (though any sweet bread, such as cinnamon raisin, would do). Then, I added some crumbled feta and grilled it in a skillet coated with olive oil.