How do You Grill Your Cheese?
Every now and then someone asks me what it’s like living in the middle of the forest. These are generally not Swedish people. Swedes know what it’s like. Sweden is a forest.
After we go through the standards (It’s quiet, It’s green, It’s private, It’s beautiful, and We got critters), the prospects of duck acquisition always come up.
Where’s the closest grocery store?
Do you have a movie theatre?
How do you survive the winters?
Which sometimes lead into
Are you depressed?
Do you worship Satan?
But that’s another blog.
Sure, living in the middle of fucking nowhere has its complications. Brief answers to the aforementioned questions are:
Our closest grocery store is 21 km / 13 miles away, in Grythyttan, a hustling and bustling center of economic activity. Here you will also find the gas station and the bank. The bank has been closed for about a year now, but is still a prominent feature of the town square.
We do not have a movie theatre. The last film that I saw was that Narnia thingy, in Stockholm, around Christmas. Right. Christmas. Around Oscar time, I had a conversation with my mother that went something like this: “Haven’t seen it…. Haven’t seen it… Haven’t seen it… Haven’t seen it…) Oh well.
We survive the winters thanks to the fact that our severe depression causes us to huddle together for warmth in the middle of the kitchen floor. “It’s a Wonderful Life” loops continuously in the living room, if only to remind us that this, too, will end. Incidentally, we have given 4,678,312 angels their wings. Which feels good. Every now and then I throw another piece of furniture into the wood-burning stove and do a little satanic dance. We survive the winters just fine.
Another very popular way to survive the Swedish winters is to get the hell out of Dodge. Swedes are the quintessential charter travellers. That Sanna and I are heading down to Barcelona on Monday is no anomaly. For my criminally minded friends out there – come on over, fill up a shipping container. This is the time. Sweden is dead, nobody's here. Prime Minister Göran Persson is actually a hologram during February, March and April of every year. He’s down in Málaga, sipping on the juice while his hologram escorts Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds out the door.
As a rule, getting duck around here is tough. It requires discipline and determination. During the winters, forget about it. Winters in Sweden are rather lovely for about 6-8 weeks. Like through Christmas, pretty much. After that, things get heavy. The worst part is this time of year, especially when it feels like the winter is not gonna let go, not gonna give up. The day before yesterday, coincidentally the first day of spring, it snowed all day long. Every day this week it has been between –15 and –5 (C) in the mornings, and then hovers around the big ZERO for the rest of the day. Hard to leave the house, let alone figure out what the day’s duck is.
THAT BEING SAID, yesterday’s quest for duck came in the form of a grilled cheese sandwich. One of my favorite culinary memories from childhood involves the taste and smell and feel and crunch of a grilled cheese sandwich. Grilled cheese sandwiches are always best when served at a snack bar, café or greasy spoon. There’s something about the ooze of the cheese and the smell of the toasted white bread that still makes me all giddy. The best one that I’ve EVER had came thanks to that rock of a culinary establishment: Denny’s. Not the most nutrient-rich, hell no, not the prettiest (I remember it being squarely square and plastic looking) … but the BEST. It was actually the first time that I ventured away from the basic grilled cheese and opted for a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. I can’t even begin to try to explain the sensations that occurred throughout my body, from my taste buds to my testicles. It was surreal.
And still is. I regularly try variations of the sandwich, coming close to achieving duck, but never getting there. Yesterday’s was a hit, mind you, a simple version with a nicely melting, slightly “processed” cheese. (I don’t really know what this means, and don’t care to look into it. This is tricky, finding the right cheese. Good, pure cheeses don’t melt very well, they secrete liquid, bubble and hiss and then just sort of go limp. Which is why those damn snack bars had it down – Those classic individually wrapped American cheese slices did the trick… What “American cheese” actually is is still debatable. At the same time, you should be able to slice the cheese you choose, not squirt it out of a tube…that’s nasty.) I buttered the outside of the sandwiches (which I had filled with smoked turkey, sliced tomatoes, and a couple drops of a smoky jalapeno salsa) and then just flipped away, adding butter to the bread, not to the pan, as needed. I think it’s key to flip like it’s going out of style and keep those bitches moving. This way you’re in total control of the desired toastiness and can get them the hell off as soon as they reach the perfect golden color.
I chewed, swallowed and enjoyed, looking out the window at all that white shit everywhere. Ah, to be in the forests of Barcelona instead.
After we go through the standards (It’s quiet, It’s green, It’s private, It’s beautiful, and We got critters), the prospects of duck acquisition always come up.
Where’s the closest grocery store? Do you have a movie theatre?
How do you survive the winters?
Which sometimes lead into
Are you depressed?
Do you worship Satan?
But that’s another blog.
Sure, living in the middle of fucking nowhere has its complications. Brief answers to the aforementioned questions are:
Our closest grocery store is 21 km / 13 miles away, in Grythyttan, a hustling and bustling center of economic activity. Here you will also find the gas station and the bank. The bank has been closed for about a year now, but is still a prominent feature of the town square.
We do not have a movie theatre. The last film that I saw was that Narnia thingy, in Stockholm, around Christmas. Right. Christmas. Around Oscar time, I had a conversation with my mother that went something like this: “Haven’t seen it…. Haven’t seen it… Haven’t seen it… Haven’t seen it…) Oh well.
We survive the winters thanks to the fact that our severe depression causes us to huddle together for warmth in the middle of the kitchen floor. “It’s a Wonderful Life” loops continuously in the living room, if only to remind us that this, too, will end. Incidentally, we have given 4,678,312 angels their wings. Which feels good. Every now and then I throw another piece of furniture into the wood-burning stove and do a little satanic dance. We survive the winters just fine.Another very popular way to survive the Swedish winters is to get the hell out of Dodge. Swedes are the quintessential charter travellers. That Sanna and I are heading down to Barcelona on Monday is no anomaly. For my criminally minded friends out there – come on over, fill up a shipping container. This is the time. Sweden is dead, nobody's here. Prime Minister Göran Persson is actually a hologram during February, March and April of every year. He’s down in Málaga, sipping on the juice while his hologram escorts Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds out the door.As a rule, getting duck around here is tough. It requires discipline and determination. During the winters, forget about it. Winters in Sweden are rather lovely for about 6-8 weeks. Like through Christmas, pretty much. After that, things get heavy. The worst part is this time of year, especially when it feels like the winter is not gonna let go, not gonna give up. The day before yesterday, coincidentally the first day of spring, it snowed all day long. Every day this week it has been between –15 and –5 (C) in the mornings, and then hovers around the big ZERO for the rest of the day. Hard to leave the house, let alone figure out what the day’s duck is.
THAT BEING SAID, yesterday’s quest for duck came in the form of a grilled cheese sandwich. One of my favorite culinary memories from childhood involves the taste and smell and feel and crunch of a grilled cheese sandwich. Grilled cheese sandwiches are always best when served at a snack bar, café or greasy spoon. There’s something about the ooze of the cheese and the smell of the toasted white bread that still makes me all giddy. The best one that I’ve EVER had came thanks to that rock of a culinary establishment: Denny’s. Not the most nutrient-rich, hell no, not the prettiest (I remember it being squarely square and plastic looking) … but the BEST. It was actually the first time that I ventured away from the basic grilled cheese and opted for a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. I can’t even begin to try to explain the sensations that occurred throughout my body, from my taste buds to my testicles. It was surreal.
And still is. I regularly try variations of the sandwich, coming close to achieving duck, but never getting there. Yesterday’s was a hit, mind you, a simple version with a nicely melting, slightly “processed” cheese. (I don’t really know what this means, and don’t care to look into it. This is tricky, finding the right cheese. Good, pure cheeses don’t melt very well, they secrete liquid, bubble and hiss and then just sort of go limp. Which is why those damn snack bars had it down – Those classic individually wrapped American cheese slices did the trick… What “American cheese” actually is is still debatable. At the same time, you should be able to slice the cheese you choose, not squirt it out of a tube…that’s nasty.) I buttered the outside of the sandwiches (which I had filled with smoked turkey, sliced tomatoes, and a couple drops of a smoky jalapeno salsa) and then just flipped away, adding butter to the bread, not to the pan, as needed. I think it’s key to flip like it’s going out of style and keep those bitches moving. This way you’re in total control of the desired toastiness and can get them the hell off as soon as they reach the perfect golden color.
I chewed, swallowed and enjoyed, looking out the window at all that white shit everywhere. Ah, to be in the forests of Barcelona instead.
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