GOOD MORNING! Somewhere out there are three people who are each one click away from having a chance to be Indignity's 5,000th subscriber. Maybe one of them is a friend of yours! Forward them your favorite Indignity and see if they want to read more.
Or if you're already one of our 4,997 readers, now is the perfect time to upgrade to a paid subscription. Indignity is more abundant than ever, which is why you received our special Weekend Insta-Post about how Ronald Reagan kept the hostages in Iran to help win the 1980 election. Indignity is also still scrambling to stay financially afloat via side gigs, which is why we're following up that Weekend Insta-Post with just this short Monday greeting, accompanied by the Indignity Morning Podcast, the Weather Review, our sandwiches, and some sandwich correspondence.
Thank you for reading! Please join our paid subscribers, if you haven't already, so none of us ever misses a single edition of Indignity.
WEATHER REVIEW
New York City, March 19, 2023
★★★★ The draft of fresh air through the slightly opened bedroom window had gotten cold overnight. The sky was sharp blue and the cat was keen and pushy. Out on the street, hoods and hats were pushed up and pulled down tightly, respectively. The air supercooled the mint flavor of a fresh piece of gum. An oak leaf wobbled up from a subway grate, hovered briefly, then attached itself to the arm of a car's sideview mirror. "It looks like someone painted cartoony clouds on a bright blue sky," the 11-year-old marveled, gazing downtown at the gray-shaded white puffs behind the supertalls. A flock of pigeons, silhouetted on the brightness, wheeled in and out of sight by the roofline, then wheeled back overhead twice more. Mercifully nothing dropped from them, save maybe a grimy feather on the sidewalk. Forsythia was blooming in Central Park, its color not quite glaring yet, and a slender tree with scarlet bark stood leafless beside a building's south wall, looking spray-painted. Plain slatted balcony rails on a plain apartment building looked as bold and prominent as Lego parts. At 101st Street, on the way uptown again, the wind suddenly came on with a knifing intensity.
EASY LISTENING DEP’T.
The Indignity Morning Podcast is also available via the Apple and Spotify platforms. PRODUCTION NOTE: This is the podcast for today. Don’t pay any attention to that podcast somebody (not gonna say who but their initials are Joe MacLeod) posted earlier that was accidentally from Friday. Thank you.
SANDWICH CORRESPONDENCE DEP’T.
I combined NOS. 34 & 36 recipes to create a sandwich filling consisting of cream cheese, walnut meats, olives, and a bit of onion, which was easy as I already had all of the ingredients to hand. Mixing through a squeeze lemon juice and a few good glugs of our MSG-laden liquid seasoning from Poland helped to achieve a more robust flavor, as did serving the house's Mexican hot sauce of choice on the side (pictured). While this received high marks all around, dining partners were alarmed to learn that I am sent early twentieth-century sandwich recipes to my email multiple times per week.
—Miles Beard
SANDWICHES DEP’T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of select sandwiches from Conservation Recipes, compiled by the Mobilized Women’s Organizations of Berkeley, Berkeley Unit, Council of Defense Woman’s Committee, Berkeley, CA, published in 1918, found in the public domain and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
SANDWICHES
Mrs. R. H. Wetmore, Editor.
THE FOLLOWING RECIPES have been somewhat changed from their original form, to comply with the latest rulings of the Food Administration. During the wheat shortage it is not desirable to encourage the making of sandwiches at all. To meet certain imperative needs such as school lunches, use the fillings suggested below on non-wheat breads, crackers, wafers, muffins, and biscuits.
When the restriction on wheat is lifted it will be a simple matter to reinstate bread in all the lists of ingredients.
NUT AND DATE FILLING
1 cup walnut meats.
1 cup stoned dates.
Cream or mayonnaise.
Mix dates with finely chopped walnut meats and moisten with a little cream or mayonnaise. Spread thin slices of any kind of bread, and press together.
—D. E. Wetmore.
PEANUT BUTTER FILLING
Peanut butter.
Milk.
Put a small amount of peanut butter into a bowl and add to it, a few drops at a time, a few teaspoonfuls of hot milk, beating until it is the consistency of thick cream. Then spread on any kind of war bread.
—Mrs. R. H. Wetmore.
APPLE FILLING
1 large apple.
1/3 cup raisins.
Lemon juice.
Chop the apple and raisins together until fine and spread on thin slices of buttered wheatless bread. Sprinkle with lemon juice and put two slices together.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by these offerings, kindly send a picture to us at indignity@indignity.net.
Thanks for reading INDIGNITY, a general-interest publication for a discerning and self-selected audience. We depend on your support!