Cheese – A Love Letter

Dear Cheese, how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.

I was snacking on a slice of pre-dinner Swiss cheese this week when MOH made a non-complimentary comment about my offering him a slice and went to the fridge to get himself a slice of Gouda. I was offended on Swiss’s behalf, and I realized I have loved Swiss (and to be fair, mostly all of his friends) as long as I can remember.

My earliest memory of cheese is my mom cutting a large chunk of Swiss into cubes for a Sunday dinner relish tray. I would try and sneak my share of the tasty morsels before they got sandwiched in between the pickles and olives. Yes, the relish dish was segmented, but that slimy, slippery swill from those gross neighbors would inevitably get dripped or tipped onto the cheese, making it unsalvageable. But I digress.

Is there any food as versatile as cheese? I think not. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, dessert – cheese has you covered. Let’s talk about scrambled eggs with cheese, cottage cheese, Cheez-Its, macaroni and cheese, bagels and cream cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, nachos and queso, cheeseburgers, pizza, CHEESECAKE, and that’s just a starter list of America’s favorite ways to eat cheese.

I love to put cheese in food, but I’m not a big fan of food in my cheese. As you might have gathered from my earlier comments, you can keep your olives, pimentos, jalapenos, etc. far away from my cheese and me. I do enjoy bacon and wine (not together), but they don’t belong in cheese either. I will admit that my brother gave us some Harvest Cherry White Cheddar from Cherry Republic and it was pretty darn good. I would definitely put it on the list to repeat, but for the most part the best thing to mix with cheese is cheese.

Most people are familiar with Co-Jack (often called marble or tiger cheese) which is a combination of Colby and Monterey Jack. I scored a marbled combination of cheddar and asiago at Meijer last week. Highly recommend.

I can’t decide which is better – cheese on stuff (pasta, salad, soup, popcorn, vegetables, breadsticks), or cheese as the feature (cheese empanadas, cheese soufflé, mozzarella sticks, deep fried cheese curds, fondue).

Have you seen this meme floating around social media?

My dad used to have a saying, “Anything yummy without onions, is surely better with onions.”  I have not found that to be true about onions, but it just might be true about cheese.