Elsa: I think we’ve got the makings of a corporate slogan for the BLT there.

Jane: Yes, the 5-gallon bucket of pickles is one more perk of the restaurant life.

Erik: Okay, MAYBE gorgonzola.

Simon: the coleslaw went uneaten because of scurrilous rumors that the salad boys kept cutting off the tips of their fingers on the meat-slicer, taping them on with band aids (plasters to you), and then, when the tips were ALMOST grafted back on, losing them along with their bandages in the slaw bins.

Does that answer your question?

Paul, Dave, Sarcastro, and other BLT-adulterers as yet uncommented: I knew that there would be some dissent from my hardline purist school of thought, and I do agree that all of your concoctions sound delicious (especially with that mysteriously wonderful Kewpie brand mayonnaise — I agree that’s the tastiest mayonnaise on the planet, and I believe that the canonical BLT should include mayo in any case). Few things are not improved by an egg, some processed ‘American’ cheese, onions grilled or raw, and so on. But my point is that those things, wonderful as they may be, are simply not BLTs. Your MBOLTs and BLETCHes and Punjabi Orgies sound fantastic. If you have to monkey with the acronym, you have monkeyed with the sandwich, so what you’re talking about is not a BLT, QED.

Darko: I love the idea of using a sheet-tray for a sled. And the bizarre connection of your work and my opening gambit is among the things the internet is for.

Gaoo: never mind. It really wasn’t worth it. I simply meant “take care of business”, as Elvis’s TCB tattoo had it. Sorry.

We have an ongoing contest as to the most inventive use of the pans, i.e., other than for cooking/baking. At $3.75 a pop for the half-size (These are professional grade pans that go for $18-$25 at the up-scale kitchen supply stores. Yeah, the markup is unbelievable on such a commodity item), these pans can serve some fairly mundane purposes. Shoe “pans” for the winter months, antenna (you weld five of them together on an aluminum pole on the roof), potted plant collector, and, most enjoyable, cheap version of a snow ride (greased up with spray Pam).

Your Ode to BLT has me going out the door for the ingredients. I sub the whole wheat bread for a Portuguese roll; the latter really absorbs the grease that’s so bad for you but…..

A slice of pasteurized and processed American cheese and grilled onions added to the BLT may be considered vulgar by some, it is, in fact, the highest expression of goodness since since Mountbatten gave India back to the Punjabs.

and i have no real idea why japanese mayo is so good, but maybe it’s a touch of wasabi or something. i always score a few squeezos of the kewpie brand when i make it over to dai nihon. it’s just not here in sw oregon unless i bring it.

Re: Jane’s pickle comment: um, I used to do that with the honey mustard dressing…dipping french fries, cucumbers, tomatoes, anything into it for a pick-me-up when customers were sucky. Other people medicated with booze, I medicated with honey mustard. And given the amount of food additives in the honey mustard, I was probably the dumb one.

The coleslaw at the restaurant I worked in came out of a carton, as did the potato salad and macaroni salad. I cannot imagine that was actually cheaper in the long run. I know it wasn’t tastier.

Not even GORGONZOLA??

I worked as a salad boy for a bit, but my workload was much less varied than yours. The only thing I really learned was how to smack a head of iceberg down hard on the stainless steel table to make the stem fall off, a skill I’ve never used since, never having the need to use a full head of lettuce at one time.

I was Salad Girl back in the day so I recognize a lot of this. The best part of that, besides being pleasantly isolated back in that cool well-lit room behind the salad bar with all that cheese, was the huge bucket of pickles in the walk-in freezer. Best. Pickles. Ever.