Hi people,

The Sketch Chef is changing the look of the site so there might be some maximum funkiness until I finish updating. Thank you.

It’s hard to believe that we are on the threshold of yet another National Sandwich Month.

Last year I started this project and came up a couple of sketches short due to a move to a new home and the unforeseen death of my dog. But life goes on and here I go again.

Fingers crossed that in 31 days I’ll have sketched 31 sandwiches.

Let’s get started. The first sandwich sketch is done and gets posted tomorrow.

Thanks for your support.

As you may have noticed, my attempt to sketch one sandwich for every day of August 2010 came up 2 sketches short. Very frustrating. Over the weekend I got a new apartment and wanted to move-in by September 1st. The subsequent packing, cleaning and shopping, not to mention lack of scanner and internet access thwarted my efforts.

Is this the end of sandwich sketching? The Sketch Chef says no way pal. See you in 2011.

Today’s Toasted June Bug sandwich was inspired by the colorful memories of my youth. During those long, hot, Los Angeles summer months, people would sit outside on their porches to beat the heat. June Bugs, (I wonder what they are really called?) flew around in droves as soon as the sun went down. My neighbor’s uncle took advantage of the situation by catching them with his bare hands and immediately pressing each of their buzzing bodies against the porch light to toast them. ZZZZZZT! Needless to say, all the kids in the neighborhood including myself, got a big kick out watching him subsequently pop those crispy treats into his mouth.

I can’t say that any of us ever tried toasted june bugs ourselves, but in theory you could make a sandwich out of them.

The canned bread for today’s “Yes-we-CAN-wich” recipe “can” be purchased at Amazon.

Enjoy!

Haven’t you ever just wanted a big old sushi sandwich? That was my thinking behind today’s sandwich. If you have never made sushi before, here are a few tools to get you started.:

No frills Sushi Kit

Sushi for Dummies

Hello Kitty Rice Cooker: Bunny

I thought I’d take a few moments here to describe the tools and tricks behind “Sketchy Sandwiches.”

The site was built in a couple of hours using WordPress and an off-the-shelf theme called “Blue Bubble.” I only made minor modifications to the CSS file to accommodate the header and made some adjustments to a couple of the php files to ignore the auto-sizing of images.

I use Evernote to store ideas for sandwiches throughout the day. Since I always have a Mac, iPad, or iPhone near me, Evernote has become a great place to consolidate ideas and notes.

The sandwich sketches are roughly blocked in on 4×6 cards with a non-repro blue pencil (old-school) and the final sketch is made with a cheap #2 pencil that I bought at Rite-aid.

I scan the cards in as black and white photos which almost completely eliminates the blue pencil. In PhotoShop I boost the levels to make the pencil lines black.

Then I add the type (“love ya like a sister” font) and export it at 72dpi for the final site image. I manually make the thumbnail image rather that let WordPress generate one on it’s own.

That’s pretty much it. Each post doesn’t take longer than 30 minutes to complete from pencil to post.

Oh yeah, I use a MacBook Pro and cheapo Canon Scanner.

Back to sketching.

2011 Update: This year I am adding a color to the backgrounds and colorizing the sketches to help differentiate them from the 2010 sketches. I will change colors every year.

Today’s sandwich sketch required creating “polenta rounds” from molded polenta layers. If you have never made polenta before you may not know that if you let polenta rest awhile it will firm up.

For today’s “recipe” I recommend a Pyrex 3-Quart Oblong Baking Dish
for setting your polenta. The polenta rounds will lift more easily from the glass bottom.

To cut the rounds, I use these very serviceable cutting rounds. They are made of aluminum and are probably just sliced plumbing pipes, but they work great for so many food constructions.

Have a great day and a great sandwich.

UPDATE: As I was perusing Amazon, I discovered these other great cutting forms:
RSVP Biscuit Cutters Round – Fluted Edge (set of 4)

Ateco 6 Piece Plain Hexagon Cutter Set

OK Bill Keaggy, lettuce begin our mano-a-sketcho sandwich marathon.

As I’ve mentioned before I don’t enjoy sandwiches much. I think the bread ruins the delicious sandwich insides so I am going to try to reconsider traditional bread enclosures for these 30 or so sandwich ideas.

My first attempt this fine August day is a delicious breakfast (or anytime) sandwich inspired by the Hello Kitty Pancake Pan. I must confess, that I once owned one of these but never got around to using it. I should’ve held onto it because this sandwich looks promising. I think the interactive ears are the best part.