This just in from L.A.: A restaurant in the city's trendy Frogtown neighborhood is naming its sandwiches after public radio hosts.
Perhaps you'd like a taste of Kai Ryssdal (pole-caught tuna, potato confit, celery, lettuce and black olive aioli on a sesame roll), named after the host of American Public Media's Marketplace? Or how 'bout an Ira Glass (avocado melt on seeded wheat) of This American Life fame?
Then there's the Lakshmi Singh (vegan sandwich on baguette), named for the NPR midday newscaster who's already so famous she's inspired a hat, a meme and even a band (wait for it — The Lakshmi Singhers).
Larry Mantle is better known on the West Coast than he is to us Floridians — he's the host of AirTalk on Southern California member station KPCC — so we don't know whether the content of his sandwich (hand-cut bologna) is a slam on the content of his show.
But wait, where's the Sylvia Poggioli? (Prosciutto on focaccia, perhaps.) The Audie Cornish? (A Cornish pasty, of course.) And my personal favorite, just because I like to say her name and I really love the way she says "Dakar!," the Ofeibea Quist-Arcton. (No clue as to what would be in her sandwich, though.) And while we're on the subject, I wouldn't say no to a big slice of Ari Shapiro.
By the way, the restaurant, called the Wax Paper Co., is around 14 miles away from NPR West's studio in Culver City — about a 40-minute drive in typical L.A. traffic — so it's not likely any newsfolks themselves will make the trek. Especially since two of the four on-air personalities with namesake sandwiches (Glass and Ryssdal) aren't even NPR per se, and both Glass and Singh are based far away from Frogtown (Glass is in NYC, Singh in D.C.).
Locally, can anyone suggest some likely candidates for sandwichdom from the staffs of WUSF or WMNF?
