Ham and cheese remains one of the country’s favorite sandwiches, a mostly lunchtime creation at home, with ham usually paired with a slice of cheese. Simple to assemble from easy-to-find, and easy-to-afford ingredients, a well-done ham and cheese sandwich can be quite satisfying. The version at Common Bond is also inexpensive – just $8.99 – but likely tastier. Certainly more French, in any case.
 
Just called the Ham & Cheese, it features the jambon de Paris – the cooked ham from Paris – Gruyère, and is slathered with some Dijon-spiked butter in between a slice of a section of one of Common Bond’s excellent, crusty baguettes. Fairly straightforward and not that large, it’s quite enjoyable, with the nutty, rich and delicious Gruyère – a step up from that slice of industrial cheese used in most homes – and the bite of a bit of mustard complementing the ham. But the tasty, fresh baguette really helps make this a savory treat. You can’t have a good sandwich without good bread, and this bread is better than what you are usually using for sandwiches.
 
The Ham & Cheese can be ordered warmed or not. Warmed is the better choice, as the cheese gets melted some. Though just $8.99 at the drive-thru versions of Common Bond, the sit-down ones charge $11.50 for it, but for the additional two-and-half dollars it comes in two halves skewered with a lengthy, sturdy toothpick, not necessarily an attractive presentation, but a different one.
 
Common Bond’s ham and cheese seems to be a take on the famed Parisian Jambon Beurre sandwich, which is just the ham, butter and baguette. Europeans can seem to shy away from combining ham and cheese on sandwiches. Philippe Schmit’s newish modern bistro, PS-21, takes the same tact as Common Bond and adorns its similar sandwich with cheese, too. Ham and cheese is popular in America, rightly so.

After three full days of mourning following the sudden end to the Astros season, I’m finally able to think about something Astros-related, at least obliquely.
 
The Mucky Duck or the Duck, as McGonigel's Mucky Duck is always abbreviated, in addition to being a great place to catch live music in an intimate setting, has had a really good kitchen since its inception over three decades ago. It’s long been the best spot for pub grub in Houston, in my opinion. It begins with noticeably high quality ingredients – grass-fed Akaushi HeartBrand beef, for example – for all its preparations, both British-inspired and those more locally popular, including sandwiches. Its “number one selling sandwich,” a unique and delicious one, is The Mark Portugal. Turkey and avocado slices are topped with melted Muenster cheese and then large, thick strips of excellent bacon that is served warm on an open-faced, crusty French roll from Slow Dough.  An order comes with crisp and tasty fries and a length of a pickle, nice complements.
 
Fairly hefty and caloric, it appropriately takes the name – and was actually created under the inspired direction, I believe – of the festively plump, beer-loving former Astros starting pitcher who was a regular at the Mucky Duck while he played for the Astros for five years in the 1990s, a tenure that included an 18-win season. Not just Portugal, but a few other Astros, including a couple of future Hall of Famers, frequented the Duck back then for good beer and good food when the team played down Kirby at the Dome. And another future Hall of Famer, Dusty Baker, was seen just before the start of spring training.
 
McGonigel's Mucky Duck
2425 Norfolk (just east of Kirby), 77098, (713) 528-5999
mcgonigels.com

Though there hasn’t been anything approaching the considerable buzz about it as the sensation that is Trill Burgers, another new burger joint featuring smashed burgers, Stuffed Belly in Spring Branch from the folks at the well-regarded Blind Goat and Xin Chao restaurants, is certainly worth a visit. The small, mostly drive-thru concept sits like a box, usually with cars in its queue, in the parking lot off Long Point in front of the redone strip center that houses Blind Goat.
 
The burgers at Stuffed Belly begin with two smashed all-beef chuck patties – there’s not a single patty option – and are fitted with caramelized onions, duly melted American cheese, quality pickles, the mayo-centric house Stuffed Sauce, all in between a toasted potato bun that was pulled from a bag of Martin’s Famous Sandwich Potato Rolls. The pickles are the only thing green to be found at Stuffed Belly. The caramelized onions provide a note of differentiation to the burgers. The burgers do taste a lot like those at Trill, which are also really good, but with the slight distinction of those onions. The dull American cheese or cheese-food, as always, does not add very much, but burgers can be fitted with provolone or cheddar for an additional buck. Though that’s really the only change you might need, the burgers can be modified in a number of ways. That might be much easier to do when ordering online rather than in the drive-thru, though.
 
From two, you can go to three, four and six patties, with three slices of American cheese. The last is likely overkill, especially for the soft buns. And these are messy burgers to begin with, even messier than most.  There’s also a couple of patty melts, if you want Texas Toast instead of a potato bun.
 
Somewhat oddly, no fries here, but tater tots. But these are much better than typical, certainly much tastier than the tater tots served recently at Wild Oats, for example; even better when dipped in some of the Szechuan mayo ordered for an additional 50-cents, though there’s just some of the “la,” the heat, and no “ma,” the tingling sensation in that.
 
As a new spot, some kinks still need to be worked out. The packages of ketchup thrown into your bag are of a cheap brand, the napkins are the barely helpful cocktail napkins, and on one of my visits, the onions were not caramelized and so the burger was not quite as tasty.
 
If a burger is not in order, there is also an egg sandwich, the Tuna Crunch – tinned tuna with creamy egg, red onion, celery, crushed potato chips, crustless Texas toast – a chicken sandwich with buttermilk fried chicken, Sichuan mayo, pickles. And cookies for a sweet finish, seemingly from Pudgy’s, though some days there might only be one type.
 
Stuffed Belly
8133 Long Point (just west of Wirt), 77055, (832) 224-5422
stuffedbelly.co

The reputation of the most popular names in Italian white wine suffered even before the advent of millions of gallons of bland Pinot Grigio began flooding the market. The estimable Eric Asimov in the New York Times wrote somewhat recently, “Years ago, Gavi di Gavi was one of the best known Italian white wines, along with Soave and Frascati. The reputation of each of these sank under the weight of a profusion of insipid wines.”  Frascati, grown near Rome, was possibly the prime offender in this.
 
Katie Parla, the Rome-based food writer and tour guide wrote that “much of the zone’s vino has been mediocre at best for a couple thousand years. Rome’s proximity guaranteed a built-in market thirsty for cheap wine, while mass production from the 1970s to today saw production grow to supply foreign markets with insipid Frascati.” A wine site thought that “most producers go strictly for quantity as nothing more is wanted beyond wine to fill carafes in the big city.”
 
The entire region of Lazio where Frascati and Rome belong haven’t received much respect even through it produced the equivalent of about 16 million bottles of wine last year. A few years ago, the Gambero Rosso annual wine guide complained about Lazio that “an overall selection that featuring few interesting wines” for the past year’s releases.  Another wine guide, from Slow Food, devoted only three of its 275 wine review pages to the region.
 
I was of the same mind and had long advised friends traveling to Rome to look about Frascati to Orvieto, Friuili, Sardinia for whites while in the Eternal City.
 
But I knew that there was certainly some very good white wine produced there, as the quality throughout the country has improved and looked forward to a tasting a couple of weeks featuring Roman-area wines sponsored by the local Italy-America Chamber of Commerce at Vinology.
 
And the initial wine impressed, Roma from Principe Pallavicini, made with 100% Malvasia del Lazio, that’s also called Malvasia Puntinata, which is one of the main grapes for the Frascati blend. The dry white was slightly aromatic with hints of maybe basil and featured notes of apricot in a fairly long, mouth-filling taste with some heft courtesy of the four to five months of sur lie aging and a 13.5% alcohol. It very pleasantly surprised, a repose to the dull, forgettable Frascatis, and likely a nice match for a wide range of dishes along with being very easy to start with. And, not surprisingly, Gambero Rosso has positively reviewed vintages of Roma, including a prestigious two bicchiere for the 2016 one.
 
From the largest private estate in Frascati, these wines from an old aristocratic Roman family, are not available in the Houston area yet, but the Roma sells for about $18 elsewhere, quite a fair tariff.

The Ai Tre Scalini wine bar in Rome

Vice has a docuseries beginning tomorrow, October 4, that caught my eye: “Icons Unearthed: James Bond.” I was a big Bond fan when I was younger, reading all of the Ian Fleming books and enjoying most of the movies. Later, becoming much more interested in food and drink, Fleming’s detail of Bond’s not-infrequent imbibing caught more of my attention.  
 
James Bond is strongly associated with martinis, shaken not stirred, famously. But, his very first cocktail, the first one described that the Bond character drank in the very first novel, Casino Royale published in 1953, is actually an Italian one, and consumed in France, not something we might think concerning a character so assiduously and identifiably British. Found on page 24 of the edition I somewhat recently perused, set in a fancy hotel in a fictitious French resort town:
 
“Bond ordered an Americano and examined the sprinkling of over-dressed customers, mostly from Paris he guessed, who sat talking with focus and vivacity, creating that theatrically clubbable atmosphere of l'heure de l'aperitif. The men were drinking inexhaustible quarter-bottles of champagne, the women dry martinis.”
 
The Americano is the cocktail that was the basis for the much more recognized (and potent) Negroni. The Americano is:
 
Campari – 1 ounce
Sweet vermouth – 1 ounce
Club soda – splash
Orange slice
 
The cocktail was created in the eponymous Café Campari by Gaspare Campari in the 19th century. It was originally called the Milano-Torino after the location of its two main ingredients, the Campari from Milan and the Cinzano sweet vermouth from Turin. Some decades later as it became popular with American tourists it acquired the name of a typical purchaser of the cocktail. It can still make for an enjoyable aperitivo at an Italian restaurant, whether in Italy or here.
 
By the way, page 33 of the same edition of Casino Royale describes the first martini ordered by Bond in print, which has eventually became known as The Vesper, and a common sight on cocktail lists:
 
“Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?”
 
These days, I wonder what kind of drink, if any, you might get after barking that to the bartender in France, in English.