In Praise Of Grease And Carbohydrates

Internet, why has no-one told me before about the miracle of the grilled cheese? With the bread? And the cheese? And the frying of the bread and the cheese? In the frying pan? With the butter? REALLY, WHY NOT?

I'd never tried a grilled cheese before this week, and now I have eaten them for three consecutive meals. Oh, I'd had something we English call "cheese on toast" (we are not, as a nation, known for our imaginations), which is when you put some cheese on some toast and then melt it under the broiler, but I was never very partial to that. It was sort of an Emergency Dinner, you see, because, as well as imagination, we also lack pizza delivery in England. And Chinese takeaway. And grocery stores. And cars. And toilets. And houses. (Oh, I'm just kidding, we have toilets. No indoor plumbing, though.)

While I was home in Singapore for six months, my sister Susie often made herself what she called a grilled cheese, but which was in fact vastly inferior to the real thing: in short, she put a slice of that awful wrapped rubbery cheese (what we referred to as "flat cheese" when we lived in the States, and which I believe is actually called American Singles, or something else that sounds like a dating agency) between two slices of white bread, and then microwaved (microwaved!) the whole thing for a minute. And then she invariably said "look, I have made a grilled cheese!" And I invariably said "um, Susie, ew."

But this! This is so different! This is the food of the gods I think, perhaps Jesus' own personal lazy-day favorite, maybe even concocted by the man Himself when he moved into a new apartment and had yet to do One Big Shop for all the things needed to make healthy, nutritious dinners, so instead kept walking the two blocks to the grocery store every few days for bread, cheese, and milk, each time promising himself that TOMORROW WOULD BE DIFFERENT, tomorrow he would drive to the enormous Safeway in the Castro and stock up on balsamic vinegar and chicken breasts and leafy green vegetables, and stop frying bread and cheese together and calling it a meal.

(It's particularly fantastic if you use wholemeal sourdough and extra-extra-extra sharp New York cheddar, by the way. Did you know? Because it has taken me twenty six and three-quarter years to know.)