''So, you put the mayonnaise on with a trowel?" my friend Rosemary said when I explained that one of the secrets to a perfect BLT is slathering.
Everyone laughed and so I began to explain my philosophy of what makes a perfect bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, which I consider as important a summer ritual as ice-cold watermelon and fireworks.
A few weeks ago, my family launched what we decided should become an annual tradition. It was the summer solstice and earlier in the day, as the sun rose above the coastal mountains and a full moon hovered over the Pacific, we gathered sea vegetables at the beach at Anchor Bay.
There's nothing like balancing on slippery rocks at low tide to work up an appetite, and not long after we returned to the beautiful house in Sea Ranch where we were staying, I began cooking.
On the way home, I had stopped for bread at Two Fish Baking Company, an extraordinary little bakery (35590 Verdant View, Sea Ranch, 785-2443), and settled on a baguette still warm from the oven, since they don't make sourdough on Fridays.
As bacon sizzled in the pan, Lucas came leaping in from his outdoor adventures, looking remarkably like the young deer we had watched the evening before, his long slender legs agile and eager.
"I smell bacon!" he exclaimed.
I explained what we were doing, and as he watched, a cloud passed over his brow.
"But Mimi," he said in a quiet voice, "you know I don't like mayonnaise."
Don't ask me how this happened because I have no idea. Somehow, the idea -- but not necessarily the reality -- of mayonnaise has become a bad thing to him, a taste he definitely did not inherit from me.
"Well," I explained, "it's the first BLT of the year so I can't make it without mayonnaise. It's against the law."
He looked at me sideways, as he always does when I say something overtly outrageous and then looked away, smiling. He's hip to my tricks, but he also knows it is useless to argue.
I encouraged him to trust me -- "Everything Mimi cooks tastes good" he tells his mama, and so I know I have an edge -- and promised that if he didn't like the sandwich, I'd make him something else.
A few minutes later I presented the beautiful BLT -- I made just one, covering the entire baguette -- on a long wooden plank.
He took a single bite, set the remainder of the sandwich on top of the little pool of juices that had dripped onto his plate and lit up like the noonday sun.
"Wow," he said, lifting his arms skyward, "this is delicious!"
I took another bite and wondered why "The BLT Cookbook," which I wrote shortly after Lucas's birth, had not been a best-seller. In a recent report about American cuisine from the James Beard Foundation, the BLT had not made it onto anyone's list. I just don't get it.
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of inviting one of my favorite writers, Greil Marcus, to dinner at my house and asked a friend who also loves his work to play DJ for the evening.
"When this song is playing," Greil said of one song in particular, leaning close and talking softly so as not to interrupt the flow of conversation at the table, "I cannot think of anything that has ever sounded better."
I couldn't have agreed more; it was exactly what I had always felt every time I heard it. A BLT is like that song.
When you're eating a perfect BLT, it is impossible to think of anything that has ever tasted better. You don't get to this point of reverie by skimping on mayonnaise, undercooking the bacon, using commercial tomatoes or forgetting the salt. The lettuce must be crisp. The bread must be very lightly toasted so that it does not get soggy but not toasted so far that it cuts the roof of your mouth when you take a bite.
When all of the elements come together in perfect harmony, a BLT will cure almost any ill, at least while you are indulging. I think even Lucas, with his opinionated palate, would agree.
"Bacon is the sorcerer's stone," I wrote in "The BLT Cookbook." "Its subtle alchemy transforms the base sandwich into gold."
It is true. There is no substitute, period. In a pinch, you can even forgo the tomatoes and lettuce, piling a mound of crisp bacon onto bread slathered with mayonnaise. It is, of course, not the same but it is really, really good. This version of a of a BLT made on an entire loaf of bread is not identical to the one in the book. Here, I omit the basil leaves I originally called for -- what was I thinking? -- and use iceberg instead of Romaine lettuce. That version was made for transport, so that you could take it on a picnic; iceberg lettuce wilts too quickly to use in such circumstances.
A Big Loaf BLT
Makes 4 to 6 servings
10 to 12 bacon slices, preferably dry-cured
1 loaf of bread, such as a baguette that is not too long, a pugliese or San Francisco-style sourdough
-- Several ripe tomatoes, preferably heirloom
-- Best Foods mayonnaise
-- Kosher salt
1 head iceberg lettuce, outer 3 layers only
Arrange the bacon in a single layer in a heavy frying pan and cook, in batches, until it is deep golden brown and very crisp. Transfer to absorbent paper (such as a brown grocery bag) to drain.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 325 degrees and cut the bread in half lengthwise. When the oven is hot, toast the bread until it is hot all the way through and just barely beginning to take on a little color on top. Transfer the bread to a large cutting board.
Remove the stem and blossom ends of the tomatoes and slice them crosswise into ?-inch thick slices. (If the slices are too thin, the tomatoes will fall apart; if they are too thick, they will fall out of the sandwich when you take a bite.)
Set the mayonnaise on the counter, lid off.
Set the bottom half of the bread on your work surface and use a rubber spatula or other wide spreader to slather mayonnaise generously over the bread. Do not rub it into the bread; rather, put a large amount on one end and then make a sweeping motion with your hand to spread it lightly over the surface, so that there are globs of it here and there.
Next, add the tomatoes. Start at one end and tile them, so that they overlap slightly.
Season the tomatoes generously with salt.
Stack the bacon on top, using all of it.
Add the lettuce, gently folding each leaf so that it fits on top of the bacon. Season the lettuce lightly with salt.
Using the same sweeping motion, cover the inside of the top piece of bread with a generous amount of mayonnaise and set on top of the lettuce.
Gently press the top piece of bread so that it doesn't fall to the side.
Using a very sharp bread knife, cut the sandwich into 4, 5 or 6 crosswise slices.
Set on paper towels, napkins or plates and enjoy.
Michele Anna Jordan can be contacted via e-mail at michele@micheleannajordan.com.
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