I Think I Miss You Most On Wednesdays and Saturdays

Tonight I ate a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner for the fourth night in a week. It wasn't your standard American-on-white grilled cheese, it was a classy grilled cheese on multi-grain with Colby (made in Wisconsin) cheese. I call it my Green Card Grilled Cheese—no Americans here, thanks.

The funny thing is, I used to hate grilled cheese sandwiches. I think there was a point in childhood where grilled cheeses just went the way of hot dogs and apple juice: I hit my limit on them and simply couldn't face them anymore. I still can't drink apple juice. Apple cider, sure, but only the real, unpasteurized, sweet sticky brown stuff. I grew back into hot dogs once I figured out that you could buy all beef kosher one and cook them on the grill until they were almost charred. I like my hot dogs with very pronounced grill marks. Grilled cheese, though. That's one I never saw coming.

I was never very good at cooking grilled cheeses. They never really browned or crisped the way they did when other people made them. I just figured it was the pan or the stove or, well, me. I supposed it was possible that I wasn't meant to make grilled cheeses, which was okay. I didn't really like them, I just occasionally liked the thought of them.

And then, we went to Ella's.

I can't quite remember what Expat and I were doing the day we decided to go to Ella's Deli for lunch. Something over on the east side of town. Maybe something green card related. Anyway, we'd never been and Ella's is a Madison tradition—a Midwestern Jewish delicatessen worthy of another post. And pictures. Lots of pictures. To document the, um, interior. Anyway, I really wanted to try the matzah ball soup, but I also wanted a sandwich and there, on the menu, was the soup and grilled cheese combo. The matzah ball soup was so-so (hard matzah balls—no where near as good as the ones in the soup my college boyfriend's mother makes) but the grilled cheese . . . odes are written about such things. Cheddar on pumpernickel, cut on a diagonal and served on a diner plate. And it was crispy. And . . . buttery.

Butter.

Of course. My previous grilled cheese attempts all occurred about 5 years PB (Pre-Butter). Until I met Expat, I didn't really cook with butter. Not really. I used it for baking, but otherwise I used olive oil or Pam for things that required it. Most of the time, I just relied on my trusty non-stick skillet. Butter was bad. It had saturated fats and calories. If I needed something to slide easily out of a pan, I could just spray it. If I needed a spread on my muffin, I used Fleischmann's Olive Oil spread.

And then Expat and I moved in together. And then we got cable. And with cable, came the Food Network. And with the Food Network came more Thinking About Food. And after not such a long while I began thinking that maybe Fleischmann's wasn't the way to go. Maybe I'd be better off using something with only two ingredients that I could actually spell.

And all of this was leading up to that moment in fall 2006. Sitting there in Ella's, I had an Epiphany: my grilled cheeses needed butter.

The trick, it turns out, is to butter one entire side of each piece of bread, top to bottom, side to side, even the edge of the crust. Not a lot of butter, just enough to cover. And you don't want too much cheese—just one even layer between the two slices. To make this work with the Colby (which is cut in round slices), I have to use a slice and a third of another slice. I like to leave it on one side for a few minutes on medium-high heat, until the bread is almost burned, and then I flip it. The second side never takes as long as the first. And when its done, I just slice it straight down the middle—it fits better on the square plates Expat picked out for us when we got married.

Tonight I slid my Green Card Grilled Cheese onto one of the small plates (not the dinner ones) and sliced up an apple to go with it. I made one of my “spritzers” with orange juice and lime seltzer water. I sat down on my couch and ate at the coffee table in front of the TV. They were showing Seabiscuit. I munched on my sandwich—the crisp bread was perfect.

I only make grilled cheeses when I'm alone.

Who knows. Maybe tomorrow, I'll actually feel like cooking something.