A Tribute to the Turkey Club
The Only Club Worth Joining
Groucho Marx famously said, “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me as a member.” But clearly, he never met the Turkey Club Sandwich, a club so perfect, it’s impossible to resist. It’s the hottest club in town… no applications, no dues, no awkward networking events. No velvet ropes, no bouncers, no lists. Just a flawless sandwich, every time, giving you that VIP feeling with every bite. The real ‘Club Classic’ Charli XCX sings about.
The club sandwich is, quite simply, the pinnacle of sandwich engineering. The layers are essential: Turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayo, stacked between three slices of toasted bread, quartered, and held together with those little frilled toothpicks, not just to keep the layers intact, but to remind you that you’re eating something of utter importance.
I’ve lived abroad for nearly two decades, and while I love Buenos Aires, being far away isn’t always easy. It means living between two worlds. Never fully here nor there. Every time I come back to my hometown, I’m met with change. Old haunts gone, new stores in their place, a neighborhood that feels both familiar and foreign. Sometimes it stirs up an unsettling sense of nostalgic homesickness, a longing for a version of home that no longer exists. And, perhaps, an existential realization that maybe it never did.
But the turkey club? It’s exactly as I left it. Comforting, unwavering, the same taste as always. More than just a sandwich, it’s a memory, a tradition, a reminder of home and the first thing I eat when I get off the plane. In a world that keeps changing, it’s my anchor, a taste that always brings me back.
I remember my first encounters with the turkey club vividly, and I have my Grandma Pearl to thank for that, the woman who taught me the pleasures of food, the joy of dining out, and the delight of treating oneself to something delicious.
You see, my parents were extremely healthy eaters. Not the almond mom kind with fat-free Snackwells and anal-leakage olean chips, but the real deal… more like hippies who believed in all-natural everything long before it was trendy. (Though they’d never call themselves hippies. Too cliché.) We rarely went out to eat, and at home, the rules were strict: apple juice watered down to cut the sugar, Halloween candy confiscated, and the cupboards were practically bare (except for a lonely box of unsalted matzo, year-round).
For dessert, we had “apple parties.” “Daddy, can we have an apple party tonight? Pleeeease?!” we’d beg, practically cheering with excitement, gathering around him like he was about to perform a magic trick. Out came his pocket knife, slicing off pieces of apple and dealing them out like blackjack cards. Pathetic.
I longed for a pantry like my friends had, overflowing with fluorescent fruit snacks, sugar cereals, and chips: bring on the Fruit Roll-Ups, Dunkaroos, Bagel Bites, and Capri Suns! At eight years old, I “knew” deli meat was toxic because of nitrates and nitrites, which, of course, only made me want it more. I was embarrassed to have friends over, knowing full well that no kid gets excited about matzo and apple parties.
But most Saturdays, I was paroled from my healthy-eating prison. Grandma Pearl would take me along to the salon for her weekly manicure, and afterward, we’d head out to lunch in Chicago’s northern suburbs: Café Alexander, Kip’s, Country Kitchen, or Bino’s—classic, no-frills joints with vinyl booths, bottomless sodas, and waitresses who knew her by name.
Post-manicure lunch was lawless territory. I could order whatever I wanted. And it would always be a turkey club with fries and a strawberry milkshake, please.
Maybe it was the bacon. Like many Jewish kids, I didn’t even know it existed, until that first bite changed everything. WHAT IS THIS?! Salty, crispy, smoky perfection. My palate awakened by the taste of treif. It was the highlight of my week.
Maybe that’s why if there’s a turkey club on the menu—at a diner, a deli, or room service at a fancy hotel—I’m ordering it. Preferably with fries, coleslaw, and a pickle. I don’t want it deconstructed, reimagined, or elevated. I’ll allow avocado, or perhaps a fancy enhanced mayo, but I like it classic, gloriously unchanged.
In Buenos Aires, my taste buds are always searching for the flavors of home. Recently, my favorite (and only legit) bagel shop in Argentina, Sheikob’s Bagels, put the turkey club on the menu. Even though I order it on an onion bagel (not the triple decker on white bread), one bite and I’m no longer in Buenos Aires. I’m back in a vinyl booth, across from Grandma Pearl. I can practically smell the nail polish lingering from her freshly manicured nails as I sip a strawberry milkshake through a striped straw, eyes wide and grin stretching ear to ear. Little grubby fingers curled around that towering sandwich, ready to demolish what was in front of me, taking pleasure in every forbidden bite. Pure joy.
A good turkey club isn’t just a perfect sandwich. It’s a constant. A connection to who I was, who I am, and who I’ll always be. Held together with a flimsy wooden dagger, not just to keep the layers from falling apart, but as a reminder that no matter how far I go, some tastes will always bring me home.
And honestly? It’s the only club I ever want to belong to.
Very nice. Great writing Allie.
Lovely tribute!