Reuben Pudgy Pie — March’s Food, Made Around a Fire

March approaches. Three years since the diagnosis month. Three years since the mammogram callback. Three years since my life split in two. But I don't think about it that way anymore. The split has healed. Not seamlessly — there's a scar, the way all healed splits have scars — but healed. The before and after have merged into just... life. My life. A life that includes cancer and divorce and cinnamon rolls and horse-obsessed children and a three-legged dog who is getting older and a brother in a wheelchair who makes risotto now and a mother who FedExes baked goods. All of it. The terrible and the beautiful. The kitchen floor and the kitchen table. All of it, together, mine.

The running group ran a 5K this weekend — a charity race for the Idaho Humane Society, which felt appropriate for a group that includes two animal lovers (me, obviously), a nurse, and a sixty-two-year-old retired teacher who finished third in her age group and was insufferable about it for the rest of the day. I finished the 5K in 34 minutes, which is slow by any standard but which I consider a triumph, because two years ago I couldn't walk around the block. Thirty-four minutes for three miles. One minute per year of age. That's symmetry. That's poetry. That's a woman running with new lungs and rebuilt breasts and a body that refused to quit.

Mason finished the Magic Tree House series. All twenty-eight books. He said, "What do I read now?" and I gave him the first Harry Potter, and his face when he opened it and saw that it was 300 pages — real pages, not picture book pages — was the face of a mountaineer seeing Everest for the first time: terrified, exhilarated, absolutely going to attempt it.

I made corned beef and cabbage for an early St. Patrick's Day dinner — not a ranch tradition, not a Dawson tradition, not even an Irish tradition (I'm told actual Irish people don't eat this), but a March tradition in this house, because every month needs a food and March's food is corned beef and cabbage and soda bread and the feeling of winter ending and spring beginning and the world opening up again.

The corned beef and cabbage was already spoken for — a pot on the stove, March doing what March does — but the leftovers the next night called for something a little more playful, something that felt like a celebration rather than a tradition. The Reuben Pudgy Pie is what happened: corned beef and sauerkraut and melted Swiss pressed hot between buttered bread, golden and crackling, the kind of thing you eat standing at the stove because you can’t wait. After a 5K and a new chapter book and three years of everything, standing at the stove felt exactly right.

Reuben Pudgy Pie

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 20 min | Servings: 2

Ingredients

• 4 slices thick-cut rye or marble rye bread
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 6 oz thinly sliced corned beef
• 1/2 cup well-drained sauerkraut
• 4 slices Swiss cheese
• 3 tablespoons Thousand Island or Russian dressing

Instructions

1. Prep the iron or pan. Preheat a cast-iron pudgy pie maker over medium heat, or heat a cast-iron skillet or sandwich press over medium. Lightly grease with cooking spray or a thin wipe of butter.
2. Butter the bread. Spread softened butter on one side of each bread slice — this will be the outer, toasting side.
3. Layer the filling. On the unbuttered side of two slices, spread Thousand Island dressing. Layer one slice of Swiss cheese, then half the corned beef, then a generous spoonful of drained sauerkraut, then a second slice of Swiss. Top with the second bread slice, buttered side facing out.
4. Cook the sandwich. Place the assembled sandwich in the pudgy pie iron and clamp shut, or press it in the skillet with a heavy pan on top. Cook 4–5 minutes per side until the bread is deep golden and the cheese is fully melted. If using a skillet, flip once halfway through.
5. Rest and serve. Open carefully — the filling will be very hot. Let rest one minute before cutting. Serve with extra Thousand Island dressing for dipping and a cold pint of whatever March calls for.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 540 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 31g | Carbs: 38g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 1420mg