skinny girls & mayonnaise

In the first weeks of January, I declared 2016 would be the “Year of the Taco” at Skinny Girls & Mayonnaise. And the year did not disappoint.

The last taco

I ate delicious tacos in East L.A., Mexico and Hawaii. I added six new taco recipes — including air-dried pork, Veracruz-style fish and Oaxacan turkey mole — to a blog that already boasted nearly a dozen. It was a good year.

The remaining weeks would be filled with holiday dinners, and who knows: maybe I would be able to sneak in another taco or two — leftover Christmas prime rib or Dungeness crab.

Yet, as I look back across 12 months and begin preparing for the coming year, I must reflect. Did I go too far? Did my relentless celebrating of the cuisine of our neighbors to the south somehow contribute to the alienation being felt by my white working-class male readership? Did I inadvertently tip the election to Donald J. Trump?

There would be no way to know.

What was for certain was that I needed to focus my sights on the future. Though I’m not normally in the habit of “theming” my years — the “Year of the Taco” was a first! — perhaps I should designate 2017 something a little closer to home. (Or closer to Michigan, as there is nothing closer to “home” for me than a taco.) Pay respect to one of the iconic foodstuffs of my own, good ol’ America. But I couldn’t exactly wring a year’s worth of content out of, say, the “Year of the Meatloaf” or “Year of the Apple Pie.”

And then, as I glanced through some recent photos and found a shot of my 6-year-old daughter Imogen making sandwiches for people at my pals Mike and Bridget’s “Leftover Thanksgiving Sandwich Party,” it struck me: 2017 would be the “Year of the Sandwich”!!

Immy making sandwiches to order

Of course! I would move gracefully from the towering torta cubana at the Vallarta Market to the cloud-like jidori chicken sandwich at Plan Check, becoming inspired to do my own creative amalgamations of bread and filling at every step of the way.

And sharing the journey with you, kind reader.

So let’s say “Goodbye, Year of the Taco” and “Hello, Year of the Sandwich.”

Philadelphia, here I come!