I’ve always wanted to serve finger sandwiches for a fancy lunch at home, so when Mom and Dad and Elaine were stopping by for a lunch, I set about to serving a collection of finger sandwiches (also known affectionately as English tea sandwiches if they’d been done in fancier form). Thinking it would be easier than firing up the grill on a day when it may have been hot, I didn’t anticipate the work involved, particularly when over-reaching with a planned selection of five different varieties. It isn’t that it was difficult, just intricate and precious and time-consuming – all the things I purposely avoid when deciding what to cook for a gathering. But these are the things we do for family.
The first was a ham and cornichon and mustard-tinged aioli sandwich, followed by a smoked salmon and chive cream cheese on pumpernickel, then marinated cucumber and garlic-herb cream cheese, a simple egg salad with scallions, and for the fifth some store-bought Waldorf chicken salad because I was done by then.
The company was worth all the work, and we spent the afternoon outside on the patio, taking in one of the final sunny days of summer, surrounded by trailing vines of sweet potato and pots of ripened figs on the fig trees. It was balmy yet breezy, and the hint of coolness on the air was welcome with the sun.
As for doing these sandwiches again, I would do so, but limit it to one or two varieties, then set up an assembly line formation that would be much easier than switching it up with some ridiculously ambitious selection. Lesson learned the delicious way, and with the very best company.
