Margaux's
Curried Chicken Sandwich

The story goes like this. Margaux was finishing up what she thought would be her last order of the day and forever. She was too tired of carrying the entire load of her little diner on her own two shoulders, literally.

Every day she woke up at 3am to feed her pets before heading off to set everything up for the day. This included all the baking, prepping the menu for the day and then cooking and serving everything.

To be continued:

Margaux's Curried Chicken Sandwich
The Recipe:

Servings: Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:

20 whole black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
2 whole cloves
1/2 lemon
3 pounds medium chicken tenders
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard
1/2 cup honey
1 1/4 teaspoons curry powder
3/4 teaspoon lemon pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
Butter for spreading
1 loaf challah or other rich egg bread, cut into 12 thick slices
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup slivered almonds
2 medium tomatoes , chopped
1 bag (about 5 ounces) mesclun salad greens
Red grapes and assorted berries for garnish

Well, that's just the list of ingredients. If you want the rest of the recipe, head over here to Oprah.com to find out how to put it all together (opens a new window).

After it was all over at the end of the night, she'd clean up the kitchen before closing up shop. She was just too tired to go on this way. The next day she was preparing to sign over her shop to a new owner. Little did she know that her sister's husband, Tim Bennet – president of Oprah's company, Harpo Productions, had his boss over for dinner that night.

When the platter of sandwiches was passed around, she chose Margaux's Curried Chicken Sandwich. Before finishing the first bite, she said - “This is unbelievable – the best sandwich I've ever tasted.” Oprah's boss told her to enjoy it and explained that Margaux was closing the cafe the very next day. For two and a half years she had been trying to run the shop alone and just couldn't go on. She was barely making ends meet.

When Oprah got home, she emailed Tim and told him what she was going to do about it. She told him, “Anybody this good shouldn't go out of business.” To make a long story short, she sent Margaux a big check that would allow her to hire two sandwich chefs and clean up help so that she wouldn't have to do all the work.

What a great story! And a great sandwich as well. After you go shopping for the ingredients, head over to Oprah's so you can get the rest of the recipe. The ingredients sound good enough to eat by themselves..., but just be patient, the end result – according to Oprah – is “unbelievable”!

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