The Beachey

Broiled baby portabellas with a smoked paprika marinade, horseradish sauce, chevre, red onion, frisee

Lincoln Beachey was a pioneer of early aviation, and one cool customer.  Many dudes died trying to imitate Beachey's aerobatic tricks, and he had a girlfriend in every major town.  In 1914, everyone basically had a boner for Beachey. A man of firsts, first to fly inverted, first to fly inside a building, the first to achieve terminal velocity, etc, etc... I bet he could work up a serious appetite .  If I had to guess what the first inflight meal was, I'd bet it was a sandwich.  Leaving one had free to steer your flying machine over Niagara Falls or to propose to one of your several girlfriends, the sandwich gets the job done while you fearlessly stun America with the marvels of flight.

Makes 4 sandwiches

8 oz. baby portabella mushrooms
2 lemons
6 tablespoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt
4 teaspoons of good quality smoked paprika
lots and lots of fresh ground pepper

1 baguette cut into 4 equal pieces
horseradish sauce
red onion
2 small tomatoes (or one large one) 
1 package chevre
frisee (or plain ol'lettuce)

On Sunday/Tuesday Night (I made half the mushrooms, enough for 2 sandwiches at a time, so they were fresh ones for Wednesday and Thursday's sandwiches):

For the mushrooms, (proportions are for each time) brush/clean half of the baby portabellas and pop off the stems.  Juice 1 lemon  into a small casserole dish, or even better a gratin/tian dish. Add 3 tablespoons of the olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 2 teaspoons of good quality smoked paprika, and lots and lots of fresh ground pepper.  Add the mushrooms, roll them around in the marinade, then put them gill side up and spoon some marinade into each of the caps.  Let them sit for like 10 minutes.  Turn on your broiler, and pop in the mushrooms for 10 minutes.  Take them out, let them cool, and then slice them up and put them in a container and into the fridge.

Before Work:

Slice your baguette in half and toast under the broiler for a few minutes.

Spread the horseradish sauce on both sides.

(Note: Horseradish sauce is different from prepared horseradish, it's actually a sauce, sort of like horseradish mixed with mayonnaise, they sell them next to each other, so be sure you grab the right one.  It isn't vegan, it has eggs in it.  So if you want to take this to vegan-town, I'd add some horseradish to veganaise and use that.  Also, if you are wary of buying and being stuck with a whole bottle of horseradish sauce, I will tell you it is excellent on corn on the cob instead of butter, and crazy good with french fries)

Layer on half of your mushrooms, then some thinly sliced red onion, some tomato, chevre and frisee.  You could also use regular ol' lettuce.

Vegan Version:

Omit the chevre, and use a little Tofutti Cream Cheese.  Make your own horseradish sauce as noted above.

I first learned about Lincoln Beachey last week from the Radio Lab podcast.  My Dad is a pilot and top-notch airplane mechanic, and I am pretty sure I've been to every airplane museum in the West, but I had never heard of Lincoln Beachey.  And what's crazy is that my Dad had never heard of him either.  Consider also, he was the most famous dude in his day, it is estimated that 30 million people saw him fly at an air-show during the course of his career, 17 million in 1914 alone, and at a time when the population of the United States was only 99 million.