Eric Schulte proposed to Stephanie Smith in Barbados as the blogger and Page Six senior reporter prepared to cook Sandwich No. 257. (Credit: 300sandwiches.com)
It only took 257 sandwiches for a Page Six senior reporter to prove to her boyfriend that she is “wife material.”
It all began in June 2012 when Stephanie Smith made a turkey and Swiss sandwich for her boyfriend, Eric Schulte.
For Schulte, “sandwiches are like hugs and kisses,” Smith wrote in a New York Post article last September. “Sandwiches are love,” he told her.
After her boyfriend devoured the turkey and Swiss with Dijon mustard on toasted wheat bread, he declared, “Honey, you’re 300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring!”
Smith, who said she was in her mid-30s and thinking about marriage, happily took on the challenge. She launched 300sandwiches.com to share her recipes and photograph the journey.
On Tuesday, Smith announced on her blog that she and Schulte are engaged, and she hadn’t even finished the 300 sandwiches. She made him 256 and was working on No. 257 – grilled mahi-mahi, relish and Bajan hot pepper sauce on salted buns – when he surprised her with a ring at their vacation home in Barbados.
“Words cannot express how extraordinarily happy I am. Not because I have a engagement ring, but because I’m going to spend the rest of my life having ridiculously amazing adventures with my soul mate,” she wrote. “My mouth hurts from smiling.”
Both Smith and Schulte drew criticism when Smith’s blog went viral last September. Social media users declared the whole idea as sexist, especially when Smith revealed that her now-fiance had asked her, “You’ve been up for 15 minutes and you haven’t made me a sandwich?”
Other critics accused the couple of using the blog to try and land a book or movie deal.
Smith said she still plans to make it to 300 sandwiches.
“He deserves those 43 sandwiches,” she wrote in a New York Post article on Tuesday. “Not just because he proposed, but because while I’m making them, he shows me how to really enjoy life.”
