Cucumber Sandwiches

Well, if you missed the news, let me tell you myself, DC had an earthquake. Not a major one. We're not complaining. My office shook for 30 seconds, and most people remained composed.Not me, I ran like the wuss I am and didn't stop for a block. Actually, what has upset DC most is the lack of preachers condemning DC. We have a pretty tongue-in-cheek humor here and were really looking forward to a few men of God blaming our earthquake on liberal social politics. Personally, I broke into a rendition of Carole King's "I feel the earth move under my feet." I think the best coverage was done by the National Zoo, who studied all their animals to show the ways they reacted and which knew about the earthquake before it happened. Remind me to get a pet lemur.

The building next to ours has been having some work done. Our office is an 1800s historic rowhouse just up 16th St. from the White House and ....well it predates building codes. When our building shook I assumed the construction next door had destabilized our building. I confess to screaming like a baby, yelling "I'm getting out of here" and taking the steps four at a time.  I realized I was standing outside looking like a fool among everybody else. They were composed and I was......not. Once I realized I was looking pretty idiotic, I decided to handle this "crisis" in the true English fashion: tea and

  cucumber sandwiches.

 Now, my version of a cucumber sandwich is nothing fancy: cucumbers, cream cheese or mascarpone and bread. However, I like to make them look pretty so I can feel fancy. I use my mandolin to cut the cucumber slices as thin as possible, so they are transparent and I can get a stained glass effect. I layer them in rows so that they are just overlapping and cut them with cookie cutters to match the bread. You'd be surprised how easy it is to move the cut cucumbers over to the cream cheese topped bread. Sounds awful, but the base layer is usually so large it doesn't shift...like DC yesterday. Next time we have a minor earthquake I hope to react in such a composed manner.

 Fingers crossed my afternoon is less eventful than yesterday's.

 Cheers!