My sisters kindly threw a bridal shower for my daughter-in-law last month. A bridal or baby shower in our family used to entail a godforsaken food substitute known as "sandwich loaf." My grandmother made the seven-layer abomination and passed down the recipe to my aunts who bought into the fantasy that sandwich loaf is something that people actually wish to chew and swallow. It is in fact an egregious invention requiring special bread sliced horizontally onto which you spread egg salad, ham or spam salad, chicken salad with a little gristle and bone for protein, chunks of green olives, sprigs of parsley, and soggy walnuts all encased in thick pasty cream cheese.