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A few months ago, I wrote about the glory that is Italian sandwiches for a sandwich roundup in the paper:

My favorite sandwich doesn't exist in Seattle. In Maine, where I was born and raised, every corner store sells an Italian sandwich for three dollars or less. It's never anything fancy: ham, cheese, peppers, tomatoes, black olives, onions, and pickles on a foot-long roll, cut in half and doused with olive oil, salt, and pepper. It's kind of a honky banh mi.

Well, Stranger reader Russell is my hero: He ordered a big box of Italians from Amato's in Maine and had them shipped out here overnight in a refrigerated box, and he gave one Italian to me. This is a very special Italian sandwich for me: I'm not going to be able to get back to Maine in 2009, so I was going to miss out on my favorite sandwich in the world for a full year. On the left, you'll see a full-body shot of the Italian. It's incredibly simple, like I said above, and probably made from the cheapest ingredients, but no place in Seattle is able to pull it off, and certainly not for three bucks.

I ate the sandwich in something like 2.5 seconds, but it was the happiest 2.5 seconds of my week. Thanks so much, Russell. If I ever have a bunch of Alex's Pizzas shipped in from Maine, I'll be sure to toss a pie your way.

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(And for those of you philistines who don't care about Italians, news intern Alexander Brown informed me that BoingBoing linked to a gallery of sandwich sculptures that is well worth your internet browsing time.)