Of shopping hungry and pimento cheese sandwiches

After a meeting first thing Monday morning in Coeur d'Alene, I stopped at the grocery store for a few things. As I'm checking out, the gal asked if I'd found everything. I laughed and said I only came in for a couple of things. She looked at the conveyor belt filled with an eclectic array of items and smiled, "You skipped breakfast didn't you?"

My checker gets me.

• • •

Show of hands ... who’s eaten a pimento cheese on white bread sandwich? I must admit I hadn’t until several years ago, when my friend, Jamé Davis, gifted me with a small container of her homemade pimento cheese. Jamé and her husband, Ryan, are avid golfers so she began the tradition to celebrate the Masters Tournament which begins this week in Augusta, Ga.

While Jamé hasn’t been to the Masters, she’s recreated the famous pimento cheese to the delight of family and friends. The signature menu item of the tournament is the pimento cheese sandwich, followed closely by egg salad. Both sandwiches will set you back $1.50. No sandwich on the concession menu, which includes the Masters Club and ham and cheese on rye, costs more than $3. Bottled water and soft drinks are $2, and beer and wine are $6, the most expensive item on the menu.

According to the Masters website, when the tournament formed in the 1930s, Augusta National Golf Club co-founder Clifford Roberts realized that feeding the masses who attended the Tournament would be a necessary customer service attribute. Providing a simple menu of sandwiches, snacks and drinks allows for low prices and provides a means to prepare the food in resident Augustans’ kitchens in the early days and on to today’s off-property, mass-production of the iconic sandwiches, sheathed in green plastic wrapping.

My brother-in-law and three nephews are checking the Masters off their bucket list this week. Interesting to note that no cellphones or denim are allowed at the tournament. On the plus side, there’s no limit to the number of pimento cheese sandwiches or Georgia peach ice cream sandwiches one can consume. And if you see a Masters flag flying in Post Falls, Jamé may treat you to an iconic sandwich.

• • •

Decent weather is in the forecast in the coming days so expect that motorcyclists will be out on the roads in greater numbers. Advice for drivers on four wheels any time of the year, please, for the love of God and your fellow man, put your cellphones away while you’re driving. Focus, pay attention and respect speed limits.

• • •

Happy Main Street birthdays today to Dianna Scott, Sandra Borg, Darin McEvers, Sharon Finnerty, Kathryn Rosia and Nancy Benjamin. Lonna Duncan, Idella Mansfield, Karen Zande, Doreen Johnson, Karen Reagan and DiAnna Macklin are April 11 birthday girls. On Friday, Mallary Juarez (30!), Connie Munk, Russell Heitstuman and Kevin Reed blow out the candles. Chloe Hudson, Angelina Pischner (18!), Evalyn Adams, Kathy Behm and Corbin Messina will celebrate Saturday. Phil Damiano, Mark Robitaille, Stacey Mann, Dana Shapland and Ron Washburn mark another year Sunday. Starting the week on Monday, Betsy Hawkins, Brian Walker, Denise Edmonds, Ian Waltz, Doug Harms, Dave Holmes, Clay Ownbey, Caroline Crollard, Tori Gray, Randy Teall, Kara Hicks and Judy Donner take another trip around the sun. April 16 birthday wishes to JD Dickinson, Leslie Gourley, Kevin Johnson, Kay Riplinger, Chris LaVoie and Tom Fisher.

• • •

Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press and Kerri can be contacted on Facebook or via email mainstreet@cdapress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kerrithoreson.