Home of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich
The other day, on Twitter, I came across the following tweet: “We’ve got to start teaching our kids about food in schools. Period.” Jamie Oliver’s TED talk: http://bit.ly/9JKz3I Ever since then, I have been slowly working my way through Jamie Oliver’s speech (above). Sure, the …
With this tortilla chips grilled cheese, I learned how a pan can make such a difference in something as simple as cooking a grilled cheese. Previously, I had been using a griddle that I believed to look great in photos and cooked pretty well. It …
As I have been writing recently, I am now knee deep into the restaurant industry after leaving my webmaster position. Right now, that simply means me working full-time at the Cafe @ Nordstrom. I am trying to learn as much as I can there as well as gain outside perspectives within the food industry. Last night was my first attempt to truly see a different restaurant from the inside out instead of the outside in.
As I am learning about the food industry, I am also learning the lingo, such as stage/staging. This is basically what I was able to do last night from 4pm-10pm. Through a family friend, I was introduced to one of the chefs at fire food & drink in Shaker Heights, Ohio. He was kind enough to welcome me into the restaurant and kitchen with open arms. Throughout the evening I chatted with multiple people in the kitchen, the food runner, bartender, and owner/executive chef in addition to observing as much as I could. Unfortunately, due to the incessant snow, it was a slow evening but I was still able to learn, especially from Chef/Manager Michael. I hung out with him most of the evening assisting at the door and simply chatting. And oh yeah, I was able to stuff olives with blue cheese. If I would have simply left it at that, it would have been a great learning experience.
However, the night ended even better.
In my email to Michael, I mentioned my love for grilled cheese sandwiches and this blog. Throughout the evening, grilled cheese sandwiches were mentioned but mostly just in passing. Right when I was about to head home, Michael told me to wait one second near the kitchen. In just a few minutes out came a gruyere and pepperjack portobella mushroom grilled cheese sandwich on homemade naan bread with a generous portion of homemade french fries. I had hoped to be taking it to go, to take pictures for this site, but the sandwich didn’t even last five minutes let alone the ride home. It had a nice kick as well a sweet flavor that worked very well together. As I told Michael, I approved.
That grilled cheese sandwich was the cherry on top to a great, fun learning experience. I hope to continue to stage at other restaurants and learn as much as I can.
Yes, there has been a slight delay in writing about this grilled cheese (and the one after, a crushed tortilla and avocado sandwich). I do apologize but I have been busy finishing up my last few days as a webmaster and diving right into the …
It was a busy Sunday consisting of working at Nordstrom and traveling to Best Buy to find a nice, new HDTV, so I did not have much time to prepare an elaborate grilled cheese. (I had hoped to create Crunch Time Kitchen’s Tapenade Grilled Cheese but …
Normally, this is where I talk about this grilled cheeses cheese (Halloumi) but this week is special and I must first give an update on my life. I don’t write too much about my personal life and instead focus only on my grilled cheese sandwiches. I would like to change that with tonight’s update. Not only do I want you to know about my sandwiches, I also want you to know about me and my personal life. Sure, I have an About page, but that is pretty general. Now it is time to learn about the real GrilledShane.
Way back when I turned 16, I went out and got a job at a local chocolate shop, where I was a soda jerk. (Awesome job.) After the parlor part of the shop closed, I needed to find a new job. I ended up at the local Cafe Nordstrom. My sous chef found both of these jobs. Smart woman she is.
I worked at the Cafe until 2002 when I started interning for college. I did not return until 2006, post-graduation, when I needed a temporary position while I searched for a full-time employment in the design field. I found a webmaster position at a small publishing company but still remained at the cafe on Saturdays. The webmaster job treated me well for three years as I learned a lot, grew as a person and was able to travel to NYC twice.
As time went on, I began this blog. And I began to realize that I enjoyed my little boy job (cashier @ Cafe Nordstrom) more than my big boy job (webmaster). I began to realize I loved the food industry. I began to realize I hated sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day instead of being in the “front of the house” with people. I began to realize, over time, that I needed to leave my current big boy job.
Monday, at 9ish am, I told my boss that I would be leaving my first job out of college. Where would I be headed, you ask? Back to my home at Cafe Nordstrom, hopefully to begin my true career in the food industry. I don’t know how long I will last at the Cafe, but it will give me the beginning skills to investigate similar opportunities within the industry. Who knows if I want to be in the front of the house or back of the house, waitering or cooking. I don’t, but I am excited to find out. Please, follow me on this journey… Continue reading Halloumi & Portobello Grilled Cheese
A week ago Sunday, I decided, last minute, to create a grilled cheese sandwich. With little time and almost no inspiration, I turned to a book called Great Grilled Cheese by Laura Werlin. That is when things changed. That evening, in my opinion, I cooked …
Since this creation was concocted last minute, I referenced my Great Grilled Cheese book, authored by Laura Werlin, who appears in the above video, for the recipe. (I really enjoy this video and think a lot of her technique is spot on. I used these …
Since I knew I would be using the Brie for this particular grilled cheese, I decided to go sweet. Via GroupRecipes.com, I found a Brie and Grape grilled cheese recipe that was perfect. Ideas started popping out of my head including a grape and strawberry sandwich, but I decided to go with only grapes.
ingredients:
On December 3rd and 4th, I kept seeing the following on my local Whole Food’s Facebook page:
One Day Only Sale tomorrow (12/4): Buy One Get One Isigny St. Mere Brie (350 gram size)! Stop in tomorrow only and get TWO for only $7.99.
Having never even heard of this type of Brie, my interest was piqued. After work on Friday, December 4, I headed to my local Whole Foods, where there were just about 4-6 packages left. Prior to buying, I tried the cheese with some sort of preserves. I could not tell if I simply liked the preserves and/or the Brie, so I went ahead and purchased the two packages.
That evening, my father and I tried the Brie and we were both impressed. It had a great, smooth texture and subtle Brie flavor. At that point I knew I would be using this for a grilled cheese. Luckily, we kept one package unopened and it stayed fresh until this past Sunday. There was some worry, but the cheese survived.
Whole Foods provides this information about the cheese:
Our 2009 Holiday Exclusive Brie comes from a co-operative of 700 farmers in Normandy, France. Normandy is a lush area of rolling hills that produce very fertile grasses and the cows that graze on these grasses produce high butterfat milk.
Our holiday Brie is unique in that it contains 60% butterfat, a formula customized especially for Whole Foods Market. This butterfat content imparts full and complex flavors to the cheese, resulting in a rich, buttery mouthfeel and herbaceous flavor. It’s also produced using a traditional slow pasteurization process and no growth hormones, such as rBST, are given to the cows.
I am not sure if this particular Brie is still available, but if it is, I would recommend purchasing it to eat by itself or to feature it in a grilled cheese.
I decided that I was going to start by sauteing the grapes in sweet butter, salt, pepper and water.
Upon smelling the grapes, I noticed that I either put too much cracked pepper or the grapes really had a kick to them and I began to worry.
Thankfully, the sous chef was quick on her feet and told me to add some sugar to sweeten the mixture and minimize the pepper. Great idea. The only problem was I still smelled the pepper. I added more sugar. Same problem. Then, again thanks to the sous chef, I added a nice amount of brown sugar. The pepper was still there, slightly, so we moved on hoping somehow the pepper taste would disappear. We ended up being very lucky.
Leftover in the pan was a mixture that could not simply be discarded into the sink. I decided that that juice would be spread over the bread and then all the ingredients would be piled on top. Yum!
Not much to say about the bread other than it was the perfect fit for this delicious grilled cheese.
In some grilled cheeses it is great to taste all of the pieces individually. That was not the case with this grilled cheese sandwich. The grapes and Brie cheese melded into one amazing taste placed between two crunchy halves of Italian sesame bread. My father loved it so much that he made sure to have the leftovers for his lunch the following day.
In my search for inspiration for this grilled cheese sandwich, I stumbled upon Crunch Time Kitchen‘s Pesto and Brie Grilled Cheese. Ignoring the fact that this sandwich looks delicious, I noticed at the end he rated cheesiness, bread and fillings. I found this to be totally awesome and thought it would be a nice addition to my individual ingredient grades. With Mr. Macheesmo’s blessing, I will be “borrowing” his idea tonight and for all future grilled cheese sandwiches. (Since I grade the bread at the beginning of each entry, as an ingredient, I will leave it out here.)
I must wish everyone a belated Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you had a great holiday, spent with family and friends. What a great time of year for sure. Now onto the food…and the pumpkin pie grilled cheese.