David Lynch's top five sandwiches
RIP to a legend: a visionary filmmaker who also gave me the weirdest and most delightful interview of my career.
I met David Lynch — who died yesterday at the age of 78 — when I was in my 20s. It was like meeting Picasso or Rembrandt. That’s how monumental he was, his work was, to me.
I first saw The Elephant Man in religion class in middle school. Its power, beauty, and humanity reduced a group of obnoxious adolescents to chastened silence and awe. But it wasn’t until college, when I saw Mulholland Drive on a crappy TV in the common area of someone’s dorm, that I became hooked.
That 2001 movie follows an aspiring actress (played with ferocity by Naomi Watts) who tries to make it in Hollywood, befriends (and falls in love with) a mysterious woman suffering from amnesia, and … plunges into a waking nightmare.
Mulholland Drive — particularly its mysterious, haunting Club Silencio/”Silencio” scene — gave me nightmares for weeks, and yet I couldn’t wait to see it again. It just made me feel so alive. Watching that film, I wasn’t just viewing some narrative unfold on screen, but experiencing it with my whole body. It was thrilling! I wanted more! Anyway, I watched it again. Then saw Blue Velvet. Then Inland Empire. Then Wild at Heart. I was obsessed.
Anyway, cut to 2009: I somehow found myself sitting with a couple other journalists and Lynch at the Russian Tea Room in midtown Manhattan. I was terrified and sat quietly, though rapt, during much of the discussion. At the time, I was an assistant editor at Forbes and had barely interviewed anyone ever — much less an artist whose work I revered. (Though he really was the nicest guy — disarmingly nice!) But as the other journalists were wrapping up I tentatively asked Lynch if he would be interested in doing a Top 5 list for Forbes.
“Top five anything?” he asked.
“Yes, though probably not films, because that would maybe be too obvious,” I said, unsure.
“Can I talk about sandwiches?” he asked, excited.
“Sure, whatever you want!” I responded quickly — anything to get him to talk with me!!!
I went back to my editors who were essentially (understandably) like, “Um, we can’t publish this.” But then, miraculously, they had a change of heart. Maybe they just desperately needed content. Regardless, they posted David Lynch’s top five sandwiches in December of that year on Forbes.com — complete with near-pornographic close-up images of these sandwiches that sometimes did not match Lynch’s descriptions at all. (Which just made the whole thing even more surreal and strange than it alreadywas.) It was one of my proudest accomplishments during my four years at Forbes: injecting a bit of weirdness, whimsy, and delight into this very square, money-worshipping, politically conservative business publication.
Rereading the story now, I’m kind of astonished at how seriously Lynch took this whole assignment — meticulously describing the ingredients of each sandwich and how it should be prepared. I remember the way he would announce each name of the sandwich on his list with such gusto and force. “ONE: BLT!” he shouted. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Lynch was so sincere, and while his films hold a mirror to societal rot and evil, they also delight in the ordinary pleasures of American life: diners and dives, coffee and pie, tractors and trailers, The Wizard of Oz and Elvis.
At the Russian Tea Room he talked about how he wrote much of his 1986 film Blue Velvet while slurping chocolate milkshakes at Bob’s Big Boy, where he went nearly every day for seven years at 2:30 pm. “If you came during lunch they made so many of them that they would never get cold enough to be like ice cream — it would be like soup,” he said. But at 2:30, they would be “just right.”
I’m republishing it here. RIP, David Lynch: your films opened my world, my mind, my heart. There’s so much more I can write about your movies and what they meant to me, but instead I’ll just say, Thank you.
High Five with David Lynch
The avant-garde director shares his favorite sandwiches.
No. 1: BLT
“The bacon has to be super crispy, almost burned and snappable. The sandwich has to be contained in levels within the bread — not spilling out on the edges. Use toasted white bread, iceberg lettuce and mayonnaise. (Note: I like iceberg lettuce. Other varieties of lettuce may be healthier, but their tastes can putrify the environment.) There has to be a sufficient amount of bacon: four or five strips, maybe six.”
No. 2: Grilled Cheese
“This sandwich has to be well grilled using white bread and plenty of butter until the cheddar cheese is melted and hot. You can use tomatoes, but they do alter the taste, so the tomatoes should be firm and not too watery.”
No. 3: Egg Salad
“The egg salad has to be thick but spread out uniformly across the bread so that is it contained within the sandwich and is not spilling out. You can use toasted or untoasted white bread.”
No. 4 Peanut butter
“Pretty straight ahead: You can use whole wheat bread, toasted or untoasted, preferably with organic, crunchy peanut butter. Jiffy peanut butter is very tasty but may not be as healthy. If you use organic, then when you open a new jar you have to stir the oil on the top into the entire jar's worth of peanut butter. It is hard work and messy, but it's worth it.”
No. 5 Chicken with Swiss cheese
“Use thin sliced, well-cooked chicken, swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise on whole wheat bread. You need a proper balance of chicken and cheese so one does not overwhelm the taste of the other. Three slices of chicken will blend nicely with one thick slice of swiss cheese. I like Lays — original style — potato chips with the chicken sandwich. The chips are optional with the other sandwiches.”
Lunchian
it is hard work and messy, but it's worth it