Salame

Anyone who knows me knows that I love salami. Not just any salami, but real salami . . . the kind that you can only find in really good delicatessens. When I was young my mom would take me to a delicatessen near our home to get a deli sandwich for lunch. I would always get a salami sandwich with swiss cheese, yellow mustard, lettuce, tomatoes and purple onions on a hard sourdough roll along with a dill pickle and a bag of sour cream and onion chips. The sourdough roll had to be hard on the outside (hard enough to almost cut the roof of your mouth), but soft on the inside and the salami had to be an authentic Genoa. I have very fond memories of our lunches together.

Since we have moved away from California, it has been very difficult to find good salami. Thankfully, our family has been kind enough through the years to ensure that my craving for salami is satisfied. In what has become somewhat of an unspoken rule (okay it is not really unspoken anymore), any family member who visits us from California has to come bearing salami. Salami is also the gift of choice for birthdays and holidays, so we are rarely without a stick of salami in our refrigerator.

The boys have all developed their own taste for salami. Brooke thinks it is because I rub the salami on their pacifiers when they are little, but I think it is purely genetic. They can be in the furthest corners of the house and yet they will all come running when they smell the salami coming out of the fridge. "Can I have a piece?" they all ask in unison. Although I do try to ration the salami, I am happy to share it with them because I know first hand how much satisfaction this stuff can bring. When cookies, candy and, yes, even ice cream cannot satisfy our craving, salami will always do the trick.