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Birthdays Are Better With Champagne and Cubans

…By which I mean Cuban sandwiches, of course. I’ve tried a cigar exactly once in my life, and it was not a good experience.

Melissa (pictured above with Kim, Lucy and me) held her birthday party on the roof deck of her extremely stunning and enviable new apartment (more on that later), and utilized my happy-easy-party trick of ordering in rather than spending hours chained to a stove. The Cuban sandwiches that she served up alongside a fabulous tomato-and-olive salad and fried plantains were the perfect compliment to the champagne and the sunset.

I brought Lucy and Virgil, who are completely in love with Melissa’s chihuahua, Zuki, and all three of them made it their #1 priority of the evening to look as cute as possible in hopes of guilting us into tossing them some treats.

Cuban Sandwich:

Just layer roast pork, cheese (provolone and Swiss both work well), and thinly sliced pickles on Cuban bread (you can also use French bread in a pinch) and heat in a sandwich press until the cheese is melty and the bread is nice and brown. You can also add a little mustard and butter if you like, but you don’t have to: it’s the simplicity of these sandwiches that makes them so fantastic.

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