Co-host took care of all barbecuing duties, while I took care of, well, everything else.
Now, before you lecture me on an equal share of responsibilities, keep in mind that I am an unemployed deadbeat who paid for none of the groceries. Plus, my culinary abilities notwithstanding, I move through a kitchen (as with life) with as much grace and poise as a drunk walrus wearing roller skates. Seriously. I’m clumsy and have a natural talent for dropping everything that passes through my hands. Add some knives and foodstuffs to that equation, set it all up in a kitchen the size of a postage stamp, and can you really blame the others for dropping the groceries and mysteriously disappearing?
I did have someone chop someone onions for me, though. Otherwise I would have gotten all weepy and boogerific. Sexy.
One of the dishes I made that day was a rice casserole-type dish made with white rice, canned corn, Cacique table cream, and cheese.
Not just any cheese, mind you.
My mom’s cheese.
Right now, you’re saying out loud (weirdo), “your mom makes her own cheese?” because that’s the inevitable question that follows the statement, ‘My mom’s cheese’, which you would think is self-explanatory.
My dad works at a dairy, which means we get all the sweet hookups in terms of beef and milk. Friends and relatives will frequently use my dad as a...I don’t know what...beef ambassador? Bovine liaison? Anyway, they’ll buy the beef directly from the dairy. Sounds like a great idea, right?
Maybe.
Many of you are used to seeing your meat (hee hee) all wrapped in pretty white paper, perhaps with an Albertson’s bar code slapped onto your order of beef tenderloin. Not so this way. When you buy your meat through the Dairy Emissary Program, your burger is still mooing.
Take a big bite outta that.
When we were kids, every now and then we’d wake up to find an adorable wittle calf all curled up in the garage. The first time this happened, our immediate reaction was “holy-shit-we-have-a-pet-cow-lets-pet-it-and-love-it-forever-and-ever-and-ever!!!”
Later that afternoon, we ate it.
Needless to say, after the first calf, every one we woke up to thereafter was treated with a more aloof manner. Think of it as being detached from the condemned.
Vaya con Dios.
besides not trusting creepy uncles.
Anyhoo, like I said before, we got free milk, too. Every so often my dad will bring home 3 or 4 gallons of milk, and just leave it sitting on the counter. During the night, the Cheese Fairy would appear, wave her mozzarella stick-wand, and the milk would magically transform into...
Creamy, cheesy, crumbly, DELICIOUSNESS.
You know you want it.
I’m totally full of shit, by the way. My mom makes it. She is the Cheese Fairy. Did I just ruin the fantasy for you? I’m sorry. Sorry you’re so LAME!
Back to the cheese.
It can be crumbled, eaten fresh, melted into a quesadilla, or, if left to dry for a few days, roast it on the stove on a piece of foil for our own little version of grilled cheese. This stuff ROCKS. I keep telling myself I need to learn how to make it, but like so many of my mom’s recipes, I feel like this is best left to her expertise.
Plus I think she’d look way better with fairy wings than me.
