Steven Phillips-Horst’s Grub Street Diet

"For lunch, in an act of utter depravity, I stomp over to what is likely America’s last remaining Blimpie. I have fond memories of grabbing lunch at this Blimpie in the early 2010s, when I worked at a political consulting firm on Court Street. My boss was a maniacal Cobble Heights power-mom, and I was her only employee. She’d refer to every meeting with our client Bill de Blasio as a “clusterfuck,” and I’d spend hours drafting typo-laden fundraising emails, then masturbate when she left the office. I order a six-inch Blimpie Best with prosciuttini (adorable prosciutto), salami, ham, capicola, Swiss, lettuce, pickles, sweet peppers, and mildly spicy banana peppers. “A little bit of mustard … DEF oil and vinegar,” I tell my sandwich artist. It’s these subtle linguistic modifiers that help guide him to appropriate condiment amounts without stepping on his creative freedom. The completed sandwich looks plastic. The bread is puffy, light as air, almost comically inflated, and test-tube smooth. I enjoy it outdoors, on a strip of sun-drenched, wind-swept asphalt, the flavor combination just bland enough to seem healthy. I feel alive." - Chris Crowley