Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Gourmands of the world unite – rare bites

Inspired by her little brother’s recent "cookery" efforts, my daughter decides that she too can be independent, creative and a culinary expert.

“D’ya think I could make a grilled cheese sandwich for myself?”
I look at my pre-teen, scissors poised mid sewing project, “by yourself?”
“Sure.”
“Fair enough, go ahead.”
“D’ya know where his cookery book has gone?”
“Yes he took it to therapy to show his therapist.”
“Ah…….so howamy gonna make a grilled cheese sandwich without the book?”
“How indeed?”
“D’ya know howta make one Mom?”
I think deep down in the repository of my culinary experiences over a period approximating forty plus years. “Actually……..I don’t think I have ever in my entire life made a grilled cheese sandwich. The nearest would probably be…..a rarebit or a cheese toastie……which are probably near enough.”
“A ‘toastie’ sounds nice but wotz rabbits gotta do with anything?
“Nevermind, you carry on dear. Knock your self out.”
“Er…..don’t say that mom……it sounds really weird the way your say it.”
“!”

Predictably I attend every step:- where’s the cheese, where’s the bread, can you cut the bread, where’s the knife………surely every parent does this as some stage or other? Every parent knows that the request for independence comes with a baggage of hands on , one on one, time consuming attention.


“D’ya have a pan?”
“What kind of a pan?”
“Er…..a grilling pan?”
“Don’t you just pop it under the grill?”
“Wotsa grill?”
“Oh…..a broiler……the broiler…..stick it under the broiler and……broil it.”
“Duh….then it would be a broiled cheese sandwich and I don’t like the sound of that one little bit.”
“Neither do I funnily enough….something is clearly lost in translation.”
“Wait til I tell everyone at school.”
“Tell everyone at school what? That you made your own sandwich all by yourself?”
“No…….that my mom can’t even cook a grilled cheese sandwich……that’s cookin 101 y’know.”
“!”

13 comments:

Jayne said...

LMAO
Oh, crikey!
Cheese toasties (or jaffles as we call 'em) are waaaaaay easier than grilled cheese broilers :P

Whitenoise said...

perhaps a nice egg-in-the-middle instead? ;-)

lime said...

printout that post below, pictures and all, and insist she shares that whenever she speaks of grilled cheese.

Marita said...

I :heart: our George Foreman grilling machine.

1. heat up the George Foreman grill.
2. take two slices of bread and stick slice of cheese between.
3. stick sandwich into George Foreman Grill.

So easy. Like Jayne said a Cheese Toastie or jaffle.

Mum used to make them with tinned salmon instead of cheese, it just wasn't the same :(

Love the picture :)

Mary Frances said...

LOL! Gluten Free Mommy has a how-to post on it I believe. If I remember correctly her husband is very particular about how his grilled cheese is made, so they posted step-by step photos.

Anne said...

nah, nah, nah.

you gotta use butter.

heat up a skillet on high

butter the outsides of two slices of bread.

put one slice of bread in the skillet, butter side down.
layer up the cheese and the other slice of bread, butter side up.

turn down the heat to medium.

turn over the sandwich when the layers start to stick together but before burning.

grill on the other side until the bread is toasty brown and the cheese is all melty.

voila!

cheers

Almost American said...

Toasties and rarebit are definitely not the same. Welsh rarebit (and a cup of tea) was the first thing I got to 'cook' in cookery class, age 11. My kids love toasted cheese sandwiches and quesadillas but turn their noses up at Welsh rarebit :-(

There was a very popular (i.e. cheap) 'toasties snack bar' in the Union building at Hull Uni when I was there.

buffalodick said...

What's hilarious to me is when I describe my software Engineer/Architect U of M grad eldest son, I tell people "He can take your computer apart and put it back together, but he can't make a grilled cheese sandwich"...

bevchen said...

I always though a grilled cheese sandwich was a cheese toasty.

Nice blog by the way :-)

All Rileyed Up said...

LOL! Love the picture!

Angela said...

I am getting hungry for one now. I am going to have my husband make it though. After all it won't be much longer that I can get him to do things with the excuse that I just had a baby and need to recover.

Jenny said...

LMAO!! now i cant stop laughing.

DJ Kirkby said...

I tried to leave a comment on the post above and can't for some reason! I just wanted to say that a line full of clothes is such a lovely sight. I use our line all the time, we don't even have a tumble drier over here in England!