Celebrating the Melted Cheese Sandwich-

    It was the first culinary adventure I ever embarked on. My oeuvre were not considered very special, but I liked them: grilled cheese sandwiches. Clearly, this isn’t something to brag about, but it was a beginning, back in 1954.

     My mom worked, so when I returned home hungry after school the fridge was my go-to. But what did I know? I surely wasn’t going to suddenly learn how to produce the meals my mom could turn out. So what was there?

     What there was were sliced white bread loaves and American cheese.

     I already had developed a craving for melted cheese sandwiches—and the part that was most enjoyable was the crispy run-off that fried brown along the edges of the sandwich. I would scrape this part off and eat it first…and sometimes I would return the sandwich to the fry pan and let more run  off and fry brown.

     That’s where the brainstorm appeared: why bother with the bread, when the cheesy, crispy part was all I craved?!

     So I started to fry cheese, sans bread. I would simply heat up the pan and fry up slices of cheese and eat them with drippy, oily fingers. This became something of a minor jones. No cheese was safe.

The problem arose—along with a serious talking-to—when I started frying Limburger….

     As you might imagine, there is a strong odor accompanying ANYthing you do with Limburger. I guess it was because of my deviated septum that I didn’t consider this a big deal. Family members with normal senses of smell took exception. But it was too late! The mad kitchen scientist was on his way!