Ripping Off Raichlen

“Over the years, I have perfected my gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches.  Not too extravagant, yet not too simple either.  I believe I have come up with the best recipe in the world, definitely restaurant worthy,”  Erin bragged to her best friend Alicia.

Light raindrops gently tapped the top of the tin roof on the screened in back porch on a cozy, cloudy morning in late August.  A cold front had moved in and cooled the air from the blazing heat of the summer.  Two stay-at-home moms, inseparable since high school, were chatting about their dinner plans while having their second cups of morning coffee after hauling their kids to school.  They each had four.   

 It was supposed to rain all day.  Both women decided they would serve the classic ‘grilled cheese and tomato soup’ for their families’ supper that evening.  Then along came the rivalry.  Alicia and Erin always had to turn their culinary delicacies into top-notch contest winning masterpieces, and both women strived to create the best.  It was often a competition, yet a friendly one.

The two did not necessarily cook the same meals as one another every day, but whatever was made was tasted and rated on a scale of one to ten by each child and husband, then averaged into a final score.  Erin was ahead by almost two points.  

“My grilled cheese is the best!” Alicia retorted, although she knew Erin had something up her sleeve.  Still, Alicia’s was an ooey, gooey, delight.  It was a very simple sandwich, one her grandmother had made for her all her life.  

“Maw-maw” was what Alicia had called her paternal grandmother.  Maw-maw was known for making comfort food.  Ever since Alicia could remember, Maw-maw would cook up things like her famous beef roast and veggies with a special blend of seasonings, loaded potato soup, buttermilk pie, or her version of Italian stuffed crust pizza piled with all the toppings, but one certain meal that always stayed implanted in Alicia’s brain was Maw-maw’s grilled cheese.  

Maw-maw’s grilled cheese was simple: 

She took out a block of Velveeta® and cut it with a unique cheese slicer that Alicia had always coveted.  Maw-maw then buttered the outsides of each slice of white bread with the cheese slices in the middle and lightly browned both sides in a skillet on a gas stove.  She added the finishing touch by cutting off all the crust, then cutting the sandwich into four squares.  The result was a perfectly melted layer of cheesy goodness between two buttery, crusty pieces of toast that made for an absolutely delectable lunch or between meal snack.  

Alicia described this to Erin with as much detail as possible trying to convince her that this basic cheese sandwich could also be served on a fancy platter at a five-star restaurant. 

“Ha! Velveeta® isn’t even real cheese!”  Erin blurted out rudely.  “That doesn’t hardly qualify for a grilled cheese sandwich.”

“Well okay, Cheese Police, tell me how you make your ‘special’ sandwich!”  

“Gladly.  Be prepared to be impressed.”

“Go for it.”

“First I take out my secret weapon: that gold medal orange fig jam that I’m so crazy about…I spread it on the bread, followed by some shredded cheddar, a tomato with salt, crispy bacon slices, and sliced green onions.  Brush both sides of the bread with melted butter, then brown it on both sides, and voilà! Gourmet sandwich!”

“That sounds excellent!  Just hearing about it makes my mouth water the same way it did when I watched that episode of Steven Raichlen’s Project Fire.”

There was a moment of silence.  Then, thunder rumbled in the distance.  Erin stared blankly at the bird bath in the middle of the yard.  A robin splashed, flapping its wings then flew up onto a branch of a nearby oak tree.  She glanced back at Alicia.  Guilty.  She had used Steven Raichlen’s recipe for South African Grilled Cheese and claimed it as her own.

“Well it’s not exactly the same as his,”  Erin finally piped up.  There are a few differences.  He uses chutney.” 

“So you made a minor change.  You told me you spent years perfecting your own gourmet, restaurant worthy sandwich when all you did was watch Project Fire and switch an ingredient.”

“I told you I changed a few other things as well.”

“You lied.”

“Okay, so I told a little lie.  It’s damn good, and that’s what’s for dinner tonight.  You can go enjoy your poor-people-food.”

“Hey!  I just got a great idea!”  Alicia chimed.  Alicia was always one for so-called great ideas that usually ended up in disaster.  Erin often reminded her of this. 

“What now?”

“You know how we’re always looking for fun and educational activities to do with our kids?  Why don’t we let them cook tonight and come up with their own grilled cheese recipes?  It will foster their creativity and teach them some cooking skills at the same time.”

“Okay, whose house shall we trash for this idea?”

“How about yours since you’re the one who ripped off Raichlen?”

“Fine.”  With that short response, Erin traipsed into the den and lifted her sleepy-eyed two-year-old out of the playpen and headed for the door.  

“Meet at my place at four!” she yelled.

“Got it!”

****************************************************************************************************

“Stop shoving me!”

“You’re stepping on my foot!”

“You’re crowding me!”

“MOM!!!”

It was 5:27 when Alicia and her crew came tromping through the house leaving muddy shoe prints on Erin’s brightly colored Oriental rug.  

“It’s about time! I thought we were all going to starve to death!” Erin snapped, fury rising within her when she saw the muddy prints.  “Would it hurt you kids to leave your shoes on the porch when they’re that dirty?”

“Don’t talk to my kids in that tone of voice.”

“Don’t let your kids ruin my nine-hundred-dollar Oriental rug!”

“It’s a knockoff.”

“Whatever.  I’m starving.  What’d you bring?”

“Let’s see… American, white American, some cheddar slices, swiss…”

“Ooh!  A block of gruyere!”

“White and wheat bread.  Just some basic things.”

“What about the soup?”

“Ohh… I forgot that.”

“We can have the girls make some from scratch.”

Moments later, everyone was in the kitchen at their stations.  Erin’s oldest, Brooklynne, who was fifteen, started grabbing ingredients from the pantry.  Ami and Alana, Alicia’s girls, were raiding the refrigerator.  Erin set up the folding childrens’ table for Alicia’s four-year-old twins and retrieved some edible cookie dough and sprinkles for them to play with so that they could feel like they were a part of the hoopla too.  Jackson, 6, supervised this activity while two-year-old Finlay napped in the dog crate that was in his room. 

Finlay loved curling up with ole Skippy when that dog was alive.  Skippy was a long-haired chihuahua whose dark brown muzzle had turned white in his old age.  Erin had adopted that dog before Brooklynne was born and he had lived to the ripe old age of eighteen.  Skippy was extremely protective of all Erin’s children, but he and Finlay had a special bond.  Skippy passed right after Christmas the year prior, and sometimes it was like pulling teeth trying to get Finlay to come out of that crate and sleep in his own bed.  Erin finally gave up and decided to let him sleep in the crate as long as he left the door open.  

“Dylan!  Where’s Dylan?”  Erin wondered out loud.

“I found him.  He’s in the basement on his games,” Alicia answered.  

“Great.  Now come with me and I’ll show you that I did not rip off Steven Raichlen’s recipe.”  

“Oh geez.  Here we go again.”

Erin led Alicia into the living room and turned on the T.V.  

“I actually recorded that very episode on the DVR to refer back to because that sandwich looked so good,”  Erin explained.

  “As you will see, there are several things that are not his creation.  First of all, I didn’t grill it.  I used my pancake griddle, and as I mentioned before, I used jam instead of chutney.  I don’t particularly care for chutney.  The recipe calls for country style white bread.  I used whole wheat.  It also calls for eight thick slices of bacon to be divided between all the sandwiches this recipe makes.  I cooked a pound and a half of regular bacon and used every last bit of it.  You can’t skimp on bacon.  Sharp orange cheddar, coarsely grated?  I used the last of my bag of mild.  Who has time to grate cheese when you have four kids?  I sliced the tomato thicker than it shows in the show and added extra green onions.  So I’m not a copycat.”

“It’s still the same principle.  It’s the same as if you were writing a college research paper, read a paragraph in an encyclopedia, then jumbled up the words; paraphrasing.”

“Oh my God!  You will never let this go, will you?”

“You’re the one who had to drag me in here to show me how you were not stealing the Barbecue Master’s Rooster Brodje!”

“Rooster whuh…?”

“See!  You don’t even know what that South African cheese sandwich is called!”

“Seems like I should know since I was paying such close enough attention to it to be able to copy it!”

“Can’t you just admit that you did something wrong?  That you made a mistake?  Are you even capable of that?”

“What about you?  Do you think it’s polite to have your kids leave mud all over my expensive rug?  Am I going to be stuck cleaning your mess?”

“Look who’s pointing the other finger!”

“Well I think —”

“What’s that smell?”

“MOM!  FIRE!”

Erin and Alicia rushed into the kitchen.  A flaming roll of paper towels was on the back right burner.  Next to it sat a half melted lid to a food storage container.  The soup was boiling over, sending more flames shooting up the sides of the pot.  Erin turned the burners off and grabbed the kitchen fire extinguisher that her husband had just purchased the week before.  

“Stand back!”  Erin pulled the pin and aimed at the paper towel roll.  The extinguisher made a whoosh sound as she pulled the trigger and powder filled the room.  

“Mommy, I’m bleeding,”  Jackson whimpered as he walked in with his hand in the air.  His hand was sliced from halfway down the inside of his index finger to the bottom of his thumb.  

“What happened?!”  

“The twins wanted tuna so I opened a can for them, but the lid got stuck and when I tried to get it out it cut my fingers, but I got it out.”

“Next time ask me to do it.  Come here and let me doctor that up.”

Meanwhile, Alicia went to check on the twins in the dining room.  The floor was covered with sprinkles and the room smelled like fish.  Mason and Lucas were happily playing with their dough on the floor with all the sprinkles, and Finlay was right next to them squishing tuna fish between his fingers.  

Oh wow. What a disaster.  Alicia thought to herself as she corraled her boys into the bathroom to wash their hands.

“Go watch T.V. while I clean this up,”  she instructed them.  “Fish Fingers is in the dining room,”  she said to Erin as she passed her in the hallway.  The girls were still in the kitchen cleaning up.

“Is Dylan still in the basement?”  Erin finally asked.  Then Dylan appeared with some monstrosity on a paper plate, grease dripping from the bottom of it.  

“Whatcha got there Dyl?”  Alicia was curious.  

It was a pound of ground beef rolled into a sphere, deep fried in the fryer that Dylan had snuck down to the basement.  After being deep fried and cooled, he had taken the cheese slices and molded them around the burger-sphere.  It was then drowned in mustard and served on a burned hamburger bun.  Alicia and Erin burst out laughing.  Finlay, Lucas, Mason, and Jackson all started giggling because their moms were.  Then everybody else.  It was contagious.

  “I guess my ‘great’ ideas really do end up in disaster.”  Alicia admitted with a crooked smile on her face.

“I’m sorry I lied about the grilled cheese.”

“I’ll have some pizza delivered.  Best friends again?”

“Always.”  The two fist bumped each other and kicked back on the sofa and waited for dinner.