'300 Sandwiches' Blogger Has a Fiance, But Still No Book Deal

There is probably a just god(dess) after all. You know her and are probably irked by her (unless you’re a not-all-men cisbro): the lady who runs the blog 300 Sandwiches. The concept of the blog? Author lady’s boyfriend—this carefully coiffed dude she swears looks like Alexander Skarsgaard—loved her sandwiches so much he told her she was “300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring.”

So, sandwich lady got barefoot and got to steppin’ into the kitchen, blogging away each cutesy, twee sandwich she made every day. She also made sure to give her boyfriend a cute, twee blog-shortened name, “E.” (At least she didn’t do the usual thirsty-chick-lit blog thing of calling him “the Man-Friend” or something.)

Looks like her feminine skillz finally worked out. (Does she also fold a mean bedsheet hospital corner?) 300 sandwiches lady has finally achieved her end-goal, en elaborate and highly bloggable proposal after just 257 sandwiches. Maybe E. wanted an actual hot meal, finally?

I have to give 300 Sandwiches some props. The blog has, throughout its existence, achieved a kind of pitch-perfect parody of a marriage-hungry, trying-to-be-hip woman without a lick of irony about the entire thing. (For instance, check this panino-centric entry describing a move to Brooklyn for “hard core nesting,” complete with recollections of cooking along to Diana Krall in their previous East Village apartment. Who even lives in the East Village any more except those kinds of people?)

But here’s the part where a merciful higher power/universal force of nature comes in for the rest of us, who resort to blog-free tactics to trick a man into providing us some agreement for long-term shelter. The most grating part of 300 Sandwiches has, in its two-year existence, not been the fact that she’s making sandwiches/preparing food to lure a man, or that the guy often sounds like kind of a jerk, or that marriage seems like her entire raison d’etre. It’s the fact that the too-cute concept, snappy name, and contrived writing style have all desperately hinted at the deep-seated wish for a blog-to-book (to movie, probably) deal, a la Julie & Julia. And despite the proposal and the media coverage—that still hasn’t happened. We’re at 257 sandwiches, only a little more than 2,000 Twitter followers, and exactly zero book deals to date. Next artfully calculated blog concept, maybe?

Arielle Castillo is Fusion’s culture editor, reporting on arts, music, culture, and subcultures from the streets on up. She’s also a connoisseur of weird Florida, weightlifting, and cats.