Each week, one of our favorite writers is drafting a list of every instance their favorite food saved their life. From slices of pizza to bagels, tacos to tamales, these emotional eats remind us that food is so much more than fuel.
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By Leah Kirts
photo via Leah Kirts
It all began in the early 1990s. A shorter, scrawnier version of myself who lived only for TailSpin episodes, Lisa Frank stickers, and carb-based meals fell in love with a humble sandwich made of bread, smeared with butter, and filled with cheese. These humble sandwiches have seen me through heartbreak, homesickness, and varying degrees of intoxication. Our relationship has evolved in strange ways over the past few decades, but you’ll be surprised to know how open-minded grilled cheese is; how supportive it’s been during my obsessions with rye bread, chili oil, avocados, and pickled onions. Occasionally all at the same time. Few other sandwiches can roll with those punches.
You might brush it off as a simple, even plebeian dish. Three basic ingredients —four if you count your mouth— plus a few minutes of tortured waiting. But it’s oh so decadent. It all happens in about 2.3 seconds, but it’s worth asking ourselves, “Is there any feeling in the world superior to eating a grilled cheese?”
No. no there is not. And here’s why grilled cheese saves the day. Every. Damn. Time.
Photo via grilledcheesesocial
“My Soul is a Chilly Tomb of Despair” Grilled Cheese
It’s 2009 and I’m living in Indiana. I share a two-story cabin with my sister nestled among towering aspens and fiery maple trees. I work full-time, and have just started taking evening college classes an hour away. The commute runs me ragged, and I often forget to pack a meal for dinner most days. By the time I arrive home, I’m fading fast.
Winter transformed our uphill gravel driveway into a sinister spine glistening with ice—it mocks me, in my 1998 Hyundai Sonata, and I still remember that winter as a series of attempts to make it up our driveway. Every night, I skulk away from the smell of burning rubber, bitter from the cold and ravenously hungry.
Once inside, I find comfort in a saucepan bubbling with whatever leftover soup I made that week and start my ritual of10 p.m. Grilled Cheese Zen. I pull out a loaf of spongy sourdough bread from the cabinet, and shave thick, greedy slices from a block of apple-smoked cheddar. I pour a hearty capful of olive oil into the center of a skillet and watch it pool to the edges of the pan. This is bliss. This is therapy.
I slowly, mindfully pull apart the golden-brown slices, carefully watching the delicate wisps of melted cheese and making sure that they come into contact only with my face, not the floor. It’s like an ancient ritual, the way I slowly baptize each half of the sandwich, bit by bit, into my bowl of soup until every crumb is gone.
Photo via grilledcheesesocial
“I Am Srrsly Drunk Right Now” Grilled Cheese
It’s the spring of 2013 and I’m mounting the courage to write my undergraduate thesis. I live with two cats and a roommate who has a boyfriend—so basically I just live with her two cats. This means endless snuggles and competitive meowing.
I’m surrounded by towering stacks of library books and taller mounds of dirty laundry. The assaulting light of my laptop screen illuminates the blank space where important words needed to be written. In an attempt to stay awake and force-read myself Audre Lorde and Judith Butler, I venture to a local bar to study after all the coffeeshops have closed. The cozy red booths and hard pear cider initially lure me in, but cynical bartenders, indulging friends, and hoppy beer keep me there —usually for one pint too many.
One walk home + too many Two-Hearted IPAs, and I’m three sheets to the wind upon arrival. This is when my compulsive, robotic assemblage of grilled cheese commences. It’s like clock-work. I could do it in the dark. Hell, I probably have done it in the dark.
“I can’t LIVE!” I croon impatiently into the glass door of my toaster oven, “If living is without youuuu.” The electric burners glow red against unevenly sliced pieces of farmhouse bread piled high with shredded vegan cheddar. I can see tiny flecks of cheese that have jumped ship and are melting against the sides of the charred metal rack. Part of my soul weeps.
As soon as the timer sings out a “Ding!” I pull out the pieces, burning the tips of my fingers in the process. After pressing the cheesy halves together like a pair of praying hands, I devour the thing in a manner I remember with little to no clarity the following morning. Sometimes the only proof of these late-night rendezvous are the dirty plates on the floor next to my bed or burnt crusts of bread lying rejected on the kitchen counter. “Ohhh,” I sigh. “So, THAT’S what happened.” Grilled cheese tucked me into bed yet again with its soft-crumb touch.
Photo via grilledcheesesocial
“I’m Running Late (As Usual)” Grilled Cheese
It’s the fall of 2014 and I’ve just moved to New York City for grad school. I’ve never lived anywhere other than small-town Indiana. I’ve never taken the subway into Brooklyn. I know nothing about bagels with tofu cream cheese or brownstones or the cult following of the L train. Needless to say, I wonder how I’ll adjust.
With one month under my belt and little extra time on my hands, I decide to take a work-study tutoring at a charter school near my Greenpoint apartment. Kids are easy, right? Teaching is good, yes? Waking up early in the morning is— Oh dear God . I forgot an important character flaw that I brought with me to New York: no amount of coffee or steaming in the shower makes an early morning bearable. It’s not who I am and it’s just not what I do.
The first time-suck to get the boot is breakfast. Who needs food when you can have 15 more minutes of precious sleep? I hit the snooze. But I quickly realize that classroom snacks can’t hold me over, and the break room vending machine has Cheetos and Snickers in it that pre-date most of the kids shrieking on the playground below.
My cheesy salvation is parceled out in small epiphanies. First, I realize that New York City is a magical land where I can openly eat food while walking down the street in the morning and literally no one will shame me for it. What I can eat while walking to the train? Thinking, thinking… the flame of my former love is finally rekindled when after five minutes of buttering, cheesing, and toasting my to-go breakfast, I’m out the door and on my way.
Life would never be the same again. I emerged from my three-story walk-up that morning, paper-towel-wrapped grilled cheese in hand, ready to take on the world. Or at the very least, a class of seven-year-olds.
Now, it’s 2016 and my grilled cheese potential has increased by leaps and bounds. Warm crusty bread flows from Polish bakeries. Plump tomatoes and spicy arugula nod at me from corner bodegas: Hey lady, we’ll taste great on you-know-what. Vegan cheese twinkles from the refrigerated section of an entirely vegan grocery store. Containers of Earth Balance perform choreographed dance routines down Norman Avenue.
Call it science or gastronomy or foodie nonsense, but I consider this toasting and melting of creamy fat and spongy carbs pure poetry.
