For those of you who are curious, I’m somewhat delirious with the sudden fall of this “curtain of heat,” as I’ve been calling it. The horizon is hazy with humidity, and I have to run outside earlier and earlier if I want to get more than 30 minutes of yard work done before I have to drink from the spigot outside.
One of the postal workers drove up with our mail while I was laid out like a starfish in front of that spigot, washing my feet in the cool water. We shared a laugh, and the postal worker said to me, “You do what you gotta do in this heat.” She’s certainly right about that one.
I’ve been on a personal, creative journey—which can manifest in a multitude of ways. For instance, I played around with my family’s tea cake recipe, substituting the half butter/half oil mixture for all lard. What resulted was certainly more cake-like. In fact, I called them “muffin tops” because they were a helluva lot like them.
Playing around in the kitchen like this can help me get out of a funk and into something more like a groove. There’s flow, some order, and a little bit of play involved if you let yourself have some fun with it.
On Sunday, I was sitting in church and thinking, “We haven’t had Pepper Sandwiches in a while.” Thus, the Pepper Sandwich made its grand return for 2026 this week.
Pepper Sandwiches is what I’ve affectionately dubbed a dish that my grandmother made me exactly ONE time! I want to stress that to illustrate the outsized impression this sandwich has left on me.
Have you ever been to Newk’s? To spare you the trip, it’s a slightly elevated Subway: soups, salads, sandwiches, layer cakes, fountain drinks, etc. Apparently, they started in Mississippi, which I guess is one point in the ongoing case of “Which is Better: Alabama or Mississippi?”
One sandwich they have there is a Pesto Chicken Sandwich, which is so popular they even have a vegetarian version made with Portabella mushrooms. It’s essentially chicken (or mushrooms), bell peppers, Swiss cheese and basil pesto on a sourdough sub roll.
Whenever we’d go to Tuscaloosa as a family, inevitably I would get asked where I wanted to eat, when I knew that the restaurant was already decided. What my job really was, was to coax wherever we were eating out of my grandmother so we’d know where to go first. Half the time, that was Newk’s… and I got this very sandwich every time.
So, one Sunday in June, much like this past Sunday, my grandmother got her favorite pan—a high-sided wok—out and started cooking some bite-size chicken, sweet onions, and bell peppers. She split open some sub rolls, lined the top with pesto and the bottom with Swiss cheese, put them on a baking sheet and toasted them until the cheese melted.
Pile on your sandwich filling, seal it with a toothpick, plate it with some chips, and you have a sandwich that you can eat off of for days.
I remember relishing this dish, showering her with compliments, begging my grandmother to add this to the regular repertoire.
“You should make this next time you’re thinking about making crescent roll pizza.”
I would go on a tangent about my extreme dislike for Crescent Roll Pizza, but there’s only so much real estate in a column.
Nevertheless, that was the first and last time this sandwich ever appeared. My grandmother would go on to say she never remembered making this dish—that she had never even had a sandwich like that. Thus, I was left to reverse engineer it myself.
I even made the sandwich for her, exactly in the manner listed above. All the while, she eyed me suspiciously from the living room, raising cane every time she heard a pan ding or a utensil drawer open. Still, she never recalled such a sandwich making an appearance on her glass dining room table.
So, I did what any creative does—I made it my own summertime tradition, my own memory. Even John forgets about this sandwich from time to time. Why is this sandwich so forgettable, y’all? Seriously!
Last summer, when I was making this sandwich, I made up a little story about how I had a friend named Pepper who used to love eating these sandwiches.
“Oh, she’d have her mother make them at least once a month and pack them up in wax paper. We’d put them in a split oak basket and eat them while watching the cows graze in the field next to her house.”
Part of that is true. I used to make a habit out of monthly picnics when I was a child, gathering up blankets and an umbrella that I’d pretend was a parasol. Then, I’d sneak off while my mother was asleep and have two PB&J’s with a bag of Doritos, maybe a couple of Pepsis, in the cow pasture a quarter mile from my backyard.
I’d bring a book, listen to the woodpeckers, watch the calves hide under their mother’s hips. As we say, when it comes to living in the country, we make our own fun.
Here, then, is how you can enjoy my own little summertime tradition. In between your tomato sandwiches, of course.
Pepper Sandwiches
1.5 pounds boneless chicken thighs or breasts
3 bell peppers (the more colorful, the prettier the filling)
1 Vidalia onion
1 package of sub rolls or your favorite bread
Optional: a jar of basil pesto and Swiss cheese or Mozzarella cheese
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces, marinating if you desire. Chop bell peppers and onion into 1/2-inch strips.
In a large skillet, on medium-high heat, add the vegetables. Cook until softened, seasoning to taste. Remove vegetables from the pan, then add the chicken. Cook chicken fully, seasoning to taste.
Once done, add the vegetables back to the pan to combine. Remove from heat.
Place sub rolls in the oven, with the option to spread pesto or sauce on the cut sides and (optionally) add slices of cheese to the bottoms and/or tops. Toast to desired doneness, then remove the rolls to a serving plate.
Fill rolls with sandwich filling, with the option to fasten the layers together with a toothpick.
You can even spoon this filling on top of Mexican red rice and some beans to approximate what I eat at basically every Mexican restaurant. You know the dish—a pile of fajita filling on top of some rice and beans.
A little tip: ask for pico de gallo whenever you order this dish. You’ll thank me later.
If you’re gonna try reverse engineering anything in the kitchen, a sandwich is a good place to start. They’re so straightforward that you can really dissect what makes them so delicious just by popping the hood up, so to speak.
Sometimes I add pesto, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I add cheese, sometimes I don’t. This past Sunday, I took a small jar of one of last week’s homemade Durkee’s sauce and used that to marinate the chicken, which completely changed the nature of the filling, in a good way.
Really, this recipe is one where you can take what you want, leave what you don’t, and fill in the gaps along the way. Any cheese will do with the right combination of proteins and vegetables.
Just play with your food, for crying out loud! There’s no lunch lady in a hairnet that’s gonna pop out and snatch your spatula away from you for doing so.
Obviously, I prefer dark meat over white meat, because I want to treat my tastebuds right. You do you, though, as the kids say.
Maybe I’ll call up Pepper and see what she’s up to. Maybe I’ll have myself a Pepper Sandwich picnic in between these bursts of rain.
As long as I can keep these dadgum flies off my barbecue chips!
