Welcome to the weekly TV thread. My favorite news of the week is Hulu’s renewal of Deli Boys, the show whose darkly funny depiction of inexperienced Pakistani American gangsters I praised back in May. One of the things Eater’s Amy McCarthy liked about Deli Boys’s first season was its attention to detail regarding Philadelphia, the show’s setting (played by Chicago, where the first season was shot), in a scene involving the food at an Eagles game viewing party and another scene that was “a philosophical meditation on the cheesesteak.” Speaking of shows that are full of moments that will appeal to foodies, the Original TV Score Selection of the Week is Go Shiina’s “Cooking,” the cooking instructions theme from Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family, a low-stakes ONA spinoff of the high-stakes anime version of Type-Moon’s Fate/stay night visual novel.

Even though I know zero about the Fate franchise and its characters (I had to Wikipedia the history of most of the female characters in Today’s Menu’s Hinamatsuri feast episode because it was full of references that went over my head), the five episodes I watched from the 13-minutes-per-episode 2018 miniseries worked for me as a cooking anime. (Today’s Menu is only the second cooking anime I’ve gotten into after discovering Mister Ajikko on YouTube last week.) The food as it’s being made by Fate/stay night protagonist Shirou Emiya always looks exquisite, thanks to the work of the Ufotable animation studio.

One episode of Today’s Menu is about the construction of spring vegetable and bacon sandwiches. Shirou cuts them vertically, which is weird to me because I prefer to cut my sandwiches diagonally.

That spring vegetable and bacon sandwich is something I’d be up for because of the enticing combination of bacon, scrambled eggs, and mustard sauce, while the meatloaf sandwich Hank Hill fell in love with in the 2009 King of the Hill episode “Uncool Customer” is an iffy proposition for me because of meatloaf.

I watched “Uncool Customer” for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Though its B-story about Hank’s frustrations with eating his favorite new sandwich in an open-seating arrangement where he has to sit next to babies in unchanged diapers who keep stealing his potato chips was more enjoyable and relatable than the A-story about Peggy’s idolization of a trend-chasing cotillion mom (voiced by special guest star Kate Walsh), I don’t see the hype around meatloaf sandwiches.

I don’t despise meatloaf—a.k.a. the raisin-heavy embutido, which was something my mom used to make—like Ralphie’s little brother does in A Christmas Story, but I agree with what Joel Reese said over at The Takeout in 2018: Meatloaf is compressed dog food.

The amount of ketchup in meatloaf is kind of disgusting. I’m not 10 years old anymore. Ketchup is for toddlers. The only time that shit is worth a damn nowadays is when I dip my French fries in it.

I tried to see if the Arlen Barn’s meatloaf sandwich was based on a real-life recipe the King of the Hill writing staff was obsessed with, and I came up empty. I instead stumbled into what Barry Enderwick—a San Josean like I used to be—found out about meatloaf sandwiches when he gave the meatloaf sandwich from Turkey and the Wolf: Flavor Trippin’ in New Orleans a go on his Sandwiches of History TikTok and YouTube account.

On Sandwiches of History, Enderwick has sometimes taste-tested fictional sandwiches like the triple fried egg sandwich with chili sauce and chutney from the 1988 Red Dwarf episode “Thanks for the Memory” and Detective Bill Gannon’s bizarre sandwiches from the ’60s Dragnet. Enderwick gave both of Gannon’s sandwiches high marks. I wonder if he has the guts to try both the onion and sardine sandwich and the 25-cent sandwich with a spread of “chopped cabbage, sardine paste, mashed lung boiled, and a schmear of chicken fat” Detective Mick Belker made for himself on Hill Street Blues.

Enderwick dug the Turkey and the Wolf restaurant’s version of the meatloaf sandwich—it was a rare sandwich where he didn’t have to “plus it up” by adding an ingredient from he and his wife’s kitchen that wasn’t part of the recipe—so maybe I’ll try that someday. But I would replace the ketchup with barbecue sauce. Again, I’m not 10 fucking years old, man.

Today’s prompt: Did an enticing sandwich you saw on a TV show influence you to make the same sandwich or buy it at a deli?