Cheese! Or, as my nephew calls it, Chiz! It’s delicious, it’s delectable, no one doesn’t like it. Unless someone here doesn’t like it. If you are a cheese hater, Reveal Yourself Now!!!!
Cheese! It was the first thing I bought at a grocery store, just for fun. No curbside order, no big 2 months worth buying trip, just strolled in and bought cheese because I wanted cheese.
I bet you think I was classy, don’t you? Like, I was getting some exotic brie thing, or picking over the cheese counter to see what was interesting and new? Nope! Kraft Sharp Chedder, food for the GODS!!!!
One of my favorite cheese recipes is a block of Kraft Sharp Chedder, a paring knife, and my lap. Little slivers cut off and eaten off the knife, heavenly.
When I am being less indulgent, there’s also home made grilled cheese sandwich. Spread mayo on both sides of the bread, throw it in a pan to roast, put sliced chedder on top, wait until it starts to melt a little, then slap a second double mayo’d slice on top, flip it over to the other side, cook a little longer, DEVINE!!!!
And there’s also my Mom’s old-school vegetarian recipes. I don’t know what vegetarians do now, probably something weird with soy, but when I was a kid my Mom’s standard non-meat entrees were cheese heavy. And DELICIOUS! Green beans and onions and sesame seeds and spices under a blanket of swiss cheese, or sliced potatoes and tomatoes under grated mozzerella, or spinach mixed with cottage cheese and grated chedder and baked until hot and crispy (one of my favorite recipes).
As a Midwestern American, one of cheese’s most important jobs is the way it magically turns things from a vegetable side dish to A Casserole. You take your veggies, and maybe some noodles from the back of the cupboard, or some old bread, you mix it together, you put cheese on top, it’s A Casserole! You’ve got yourself a MEAL!!! (side note: when I was a child in the mid-90s, there was a Big Deal because someone who as assigned “main course” for the neighborhood pot luck brought a vegetable dish, and vegetables = side dish, only meat = main dish. She should have put cheese on top)
Okay that’s my cheese story, as a proud midwestern American who believes cheese comes in two flavors, white and yellow. What’s your story?
dontcallitbollywood 
I am hungry and waiting for my family to come home to eat dinner and your spinach casserole pic just made my mouth water. I do love a good casserole, though usually don’t have patience for the multi step cooking required to make them. And maybe scared off by the amount of cheese required. My husband’s latest diet is low cholesterol which means cutting meat *and* cheese and I can tell you that took out a lot of my vegetarian repertoire. Cheese makes everything delicious.
From most American to least:
– Go-to dish when it’s just me and the kids is out of the box mac and cheese with black beans and broccoli mixed in.
– Grilled cheese is one of my longstanding food loves. My deli order is on rye with cheddar, and bacon if I’m feeling indulgent.
– Spanish style: Manchego, not too cold, sliced thin to nibble as a snack with beer or wine.
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Here’s the question: can you really call Mac and cheese “cheese”? I love it, obviously, and keep a box on hand for comfort food emergencies. But I am not sure if there is anything that could technically be called “cheese” within it.
And your elegant Manchego is the same as my Kraft cheddar dish! Sliced thin and nibbled. Only I have it off the block.
I never thought about casseroles being a lot of work. But I guess that is in the same general category of “everything Mom does just magically happens”. Every night Mom would disappear into the kitchen and do Mom Things, and then we would have dinner and I would go “ewwwwww, vegetables! I don’t like it!” Related to that, her casserole recipe books are filled with substitution notes because I won’t eat this, or my sister wouldn’t eat that, or my Dad refused to eat this other thing. Or, very rarely, we all like it so she should double the recipe and have left overs. It’s a problem with casseroles, so many ingredients opening the door for picky eater rejection.
On Fri, Jun 4, 2021 at 6:58 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Ha! That is a very accurate description of cooking for a family. Thankless job much of the time. I tell my kids my job isn’t to cater to their whims, it’s to keep them healthy. They make faces at me.
My husband does the grocery shopping and he won’t buy mac and cheese because he doesn’t see the difference between the powdered cheese and just grating some parmesan over plain pasta. I have tried to be accepting but the powdered cheese is so much better! So yes, while it’s questionable to call cheese powder reconstituted with milk and butter cheese, I feel like it qualifies as much as Kraft American singles.
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Every other child in the world got to have Lucky Charms for breakfast and we were only allowed to have plain corn flakes and plain cheerios and it was HORRIBLE. Tell your children of my pain.
On Fri, Jun 4, 2021 at 8:26 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I don’t hate cheese but I can’t eat it since I breasfed my son. Ironic, I had to quit milk and cheese because it caused colic to him. Now my body doesn’t digest it, but my son is the biggest cheese eater. Not fair! And it’s so hard to cook italian without cheese.
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That is the worst thing I have ever heard! You need to hold this over your son’s head for the rest of his life. When he brings home some woman to marry you disapprove of, tell him “I can’t eat cheese because of you!”
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Whenever I’m unhappy, I think of the poor vegans. They can’t top anything with melted cheese.
I always have to buy extra mozzarella whenever I’m making a dish with it, because half will always land directly in my mouth.
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Cheese makes everything better! I could never be Vegan. Vegetarian, maybe. But I can’t give up my eggs and dairy.
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Vegan mac and cheese is actually surprisingly tasty. Not as satisfying as real cheese, but it gets the job done. I think it’s made from cashews. The place I went to put sliced mushrooms and broccoli in it too and that made it better.
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I don’t know, I still don’t trust vegan cheese.
On Mon, Jul 5, 2021 at 11:46 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oy! I’ll admit that I think of cheese as just another ingredient in food and do not understand the fuss around it. I even ask for light cheese on pizza. Maybe because I’ve always had a bit of a sensitivity to it that I never developed a taste for it. I would never just sit there and eat a block of cheese. Ever! Also, one more confession, my favorite type of cheese is cheese whiz/the powdered cheese from mac and cheese (or as my husband calls it, mostly plastic).
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Well that’s it, clearly at our first DCIB potluck we should just have people bring variations on Mac and Cheese.
On Sat, Jun 5, 2021 at 5:24 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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