Golden

It’s been a couple of years since I last had grilled cheese sandwiches. Not for lack of desire, but all of those carbs don’t fit into my current diet, and I’m good at adulting, even when it sucks. Tonight there was a request.

It was good to see that I hadn’t lost my touch. The sandwiches were “Golden!!”

As I’ve stated at least once before, this is how family tradition dictates that grilled cheese sandwiches be served in the household. When I was a kid, my mother would usually burn one side of the sandwich, and I mean she would char it as if with nuclear hellfire, and then she would serve it with that side down on the plate and hidden. By the time I was a teen I had caught on to that attempted ruse and I would ask that the sandwich be presented on the spatula (as above) for inspection, then flipped over onto the plate for review of the other side (as below). The best sandwiches, thousands of which I made for my kids in their youth, were “golden!!” and full of gooey, cheesey wonderfulness.

I would occasionally char one, but at least I was honest about it. And to this day, even though my kids are grown, we’ll occasionally proudly pass around on the family group chat pictures of a particularly nicely done grilled cheese sandwich.

These traditions are important.