My Bloody Valentine

I know for most of you ladies Valentine's Day is about flowers or chocolate, but in the Micro family household is all about a big hunk of bloody meat. Since I'll be away for work in Raleigh this upcoming week (my flight actually leaves in a few hours) we celebrated V-Day last night. A nice bottle of Cab from Napa, two thick cut NY Strips with a Cabernet peppercorn reduction (holy shit that was good), some sauteed asparagus, and a big old hunk of chocolate peanut butter cake from the PA Dutch Market (Sorry I don't have a better picture of it, we were too busy stuffing it into our gullet.) This is how we do it up right:

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Reubens & Cubans: Atwater's plus more!

Reubens & Cubans is a column I've been wanting to start ever since I've been on my most recent culinary kick: sandwiches. This column will exclude burgers as I consider them in a realm all their own. A realm ruled by dragons... and robots. No wait, robotic cyborg-dragons! Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And ninjas. You know I love me some burgers so they'll have posts solely dedicated to them. See what I do for you, burgers? You'd better put out when I'm in the mood... for meat. Big honkin' heaps of meat.

Since I've become a "foodie" I've gone through various phases of being obsessed with cooking/eating certain dishes or cuisines. From memory my phases of obsession went something like curries, then tex-mex, chili, barbecue, fish tacos, burgers, and now straight up sandwiches. My newest infatuation is the reuben, hence the title of this column. This is a prime example of how my tastes have done a complete 180 since I was a kid. Growing up I hated sauerkraut, rye, and swiss! Now I'm completely entranced by the marriage of flavors encased in a reuben sandwich. But I digress this post doesn't involve a reuben (although there will be one in the very near future). This is about Atwater's with a bonus review of the awesomeness that is the Pennsylvania Dutch Market in Cockeysville. So let's get to the meat of this (sandwich) post!

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