Grilled Cheese Master

I am a grilled cheese master. I have achieved the art of the slightly brown toasted, right amount of cheese meltiness, light buttery goodness, and perfect twist flip that combine to make the World’s Best Grilled Cheese. I’m good at it. And I should be. Twenty years of practice (apparently) makes perfect.

I started making grilled cheeses when I was eight (thanks mostly to my mother’s frustration). I detested (and still do) most breakfast foods. Eggs. Yuck. Sausage. Yuck. Bacon. Double Yuck. Oatmeal. Gag me. Cereal. Why not eat cardboard? Jelly? Tastes like squished bugs. Should I go on? Anyway, I wouldn’t touch most breakfast foods, except for chocolate (and only chocolate) Pop Tarts. Mom despaired on what to make me for breakfast. I was SO picky.

Then one morning I got sick and couldn’t go to school. Mom had to drop me off at Grandma’s house. Grandma asked me what I wanted for breakfast, and I decided to take a shot at what I really DID want. “Grilled cheese?” I asked hesitantly. And off Grandma toddled into the kitchen to make me a grilled cheese – AT 9:00 O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING!!! I was exultant. The impossible was possible.

Looking back now, I realize that perhaps Grandma was just indulging her sick grandchild, but I’m not kidding when I say that moment changed my life. It made me realize that no matter how odd (and people still think the fact I have grilled cheese in the morning is very odd) something may be considered by other people, if you really want it, it IS possible. I credit Grandma for teaching me (with just one little ole grilled cheese) to think “outside the box” and go for my dreams, no matter what other people think.

The next morning I told my mom I wanted grilled cheese for breakfast. She looked at me a little strangely, and I decided to make a case for it. First, I pointed out Grandma had done it – her very own mother. Then, I said it included a lot of the same things as in “regular” breakfast food. Bread = Toast, Cheese = Used in scrambled eggs, and Butter = Used on toast. Mom says I made a very passionate argument for an eight year old.

After she listened, she thought for a moment, and then said I COULD have grilled cheese for breakfast, but I would have to learn to make it for myself, since she wouldn’t have time to do it every morning.

So, she gave me a Grilled Cheese Making Lesson. At first, I spread the butter too hard and the bread would tear, and sometimes I forgot to spray the pan and the whole mess would stick, and other times I got distracted and charred my sandwich…but, after a while, I became an artist. And my parents were so relieved I wasn’t just eating chocolate Pop Tarts anymore that they just got used to it.

After a while, it became part of our family history. I still remember being a very happy nine year old when Mom and Dad presented me with a non-stick pan for Christmas. “It’s for your grilled cheeses,” they sang to me in chorus. It is an atypical, albeit warm and fuzzy, holiday memory.

I haven’t expanded my breakfast horizons very much over the years. In college, I fell in love with bagels and cream cheese. I had never tasted cream cheese before, due to thinking it was the same thing as cottage cheese (which I had tasted and disliked very, very much – tasted like lumpy mucus!). And I learned to tolerate certain dishes and cereals, but I lived for the weekends I would be home and could make grilled cheese for breakfast.

I still make grilled cheese for breakfast at least two times a week. I vary it with toast and peanut butter, bagels and cream cheese, cereal, fruit, and an occasional treat like one (and only one) donut.

But, for some reason, even to this day, I can’t seem to make myself even look at (or think about) chocolate Pop Tarts.

Go figure.