Mutant Tomatoes, Melty Cheese & Mean Ol’ Peppers

A few weeks back I decided to finally do something with the half a box of cherry tomatoes I’d had sitting in my fridge for about a month. I shit you not, I got those tomatoes back in January when Dopp and I were doing a tasting for the owners of our old restaurant…helping them style out the menu for their new place even tough they had no plans to take us over there. Anyway, those tomatoes sat in my fridge for weeks. I just never seemed to have a chance to do anything with them. Finally, I decided to shit or get off the pot and pulled them out of the fridge.
I had grilled cheese on the brain. Actually, I had, had grilled cheese on the brain ever since I went to visit my aunt (keep her in your prayers, if you wouldn’t mind) and she had given me some aged Gruyere, some smoked Gouda and a little hunk of goat cheese that didn’t make it back to my house. The cheese, like the tomatoes, sat neglected in my refrigerator…but not for long. One day, everything fell into place like the long rectangular piece in a game of Tetris. I took the tomatoes and poked some holes in them and got them on a sheet tray. I took a jalapeno (also from that tasting, and yet someone perfectly okay), sliced it thin and then crisped it in a little bacon fat. I set those aside, checked on my tomatoes and got the bread, the cheese and some ham out of my fridge. Now, I should mention that usually I like a grilled cheese sandwich on white bread, but since I’ve branched out into eating less traditional grilled cheese sandwiches, i.e. multiple cheeses, meats and or vegetables; I’ve found I like a heartier bread with a little more taste like a whole wheat or a Ciabatta. Now maybe technically, it’s not really a grilled cheese anymore, but then again, maybe technically I don’t really care what you think.
With my tomatoes sizzling and popping in the oven, I buttered the outside of two pieces of bread and started slicing my Gruyere and smoked gouda. I layered alternating pieces of cheese (Gruyere, then smoked gouda, &c.) across the bread, then put some of my thinly sliced ham across that. I pulled my tomatoes, fired to perfection, out of the oven and cut them in half. The tomatoes and the jalapenos went on next, followed by another slice of ham, more jalapeno & tomato, finally more cheese; and then obviously covered the entire thing with a second piece of bread.
Now remember that bacon fat that jalapenos crispified themselves in? Well, I kept it in the pan, because why the hell not? Spicy bacon grease to help flavor some grilled cheese? Why the hell not! So I added a little butter to my pan and got to work. I started the sandwich out on a high flame, got some nice colour on the outside, gave it a press, lowered my heat, flipped over my sandwich and domed it. As I understand it, or what I learned watching the irrepressible Bobby Flay on his show “Throwdown!” is that “doming” helps melt the cheese in your sandwich.
Essentially what you do is cover the entire sandwich with a bowl…to create a “dome,” and use the trapped heat inside to speed the cheese-melting process. Interestingly enough, after years of making grilled cheese sandwiches I’d never seen anyone dome a grilled cheese until I saw that episode of “Throwdown!” A buddy of mine from New Jersey knew all about it when I cooked at his place and made one for his girlfriend last Summer. The people Bobby beat in that episode had their store in New Jersey…maybe it’s a Jersey thing. I’d love it if someone could shed some light on this for me.
Anyway, I pulled the bowl off and got my grilled cheese on a plate. When it was all said and done, I can say that I had one of the best grilled cheese sandwiches I’ve ever had. Now before you jump down my throat about tooting my own horn, let me just say I think it was more a combination of the two different cheeses, the jalapenos, roasted tomato and the ham; than anything I did. It’s also a little strange, because like I said, those tomatoes had been living in my for somewhere in the neighborhood of over a month before I did anything with them and they were no worse for wear. So, ya’know, maybe those hothouse tomatoes, that are full of hormones and less natural than Jenna Jameson are good for something after all. Nonetheless, I’m thinking about making one right now.
Next up, I take on a certain hairless gentleman and his South American grown confection...

It’s Not Delivery, It’s Disaster

This piece is about ordering food and due to the embarrassment it may cause the company and the fact that they have attempted to placate me with a coupon and the fact that this headache is still ongoing for both them and for me; I have changed the name of the company to protect the guilty.
Even though I’m a professional cook, sometimes I don’t want to be bothered with cooking at home. I mean, I spend about an average of fourteen hours a day, five days a week away from my house; the last thing I’m interested in doing when I get home or when I wake up in the morning is spend more time next to a stove. Sometimes, I’ll make myself food, freeze it and heat it up when I’m feeling hungry; but for the most part my refrigerator contains condiments, water and the occasional beer…but I’m pretty much a wine drinker. Anyway, I’m much more likely to go get myself food rather than make it at home.
I live in Brooklyn and as much as some of my friends might try to compare it to beautiful downtown Tunguska, Siberia; it doesn’t actually take me three hours to get home and I actually do have options when it comes to what I want to eat. Because, in many ways, I am a wonderfully predicable creature of habit I usually end up going to the same places, ordering the same things and eating: General Tso’s Chicken, with white rice; a Chicken Burrito with the works, Habanero sauce and some fried Plantains; and occasionally a Sausage, Mushroom and Spinach Calzone. However, there are times when (its raining or snowing or I’m tired) I don’t feel like making the walk to one of the places I can get my food fix and in those times I end up ordering food. Usually, I end up ordering pizza because I have this crazy notion that the guys who work at the places I get my food from know my face, but don’t know where I live and the food will taste better if I show up in person, rather than waiting for it to come to me.
I usually (read, maybe once every eight weeks) order from Papa John’s and in some cases this other pizza chain, let’s call Triominoes. I know Triominoes isn’t very good, but when you’re tired and you’re hungry and the only effort you want to expend to get your food is making a phone call and answering the door, you take what you can get. So one night, a few months back, I was especially hungry and decided to order from Triominoes; and having recently seen a commercial of theirs touting their oven-baked sandwiches and how they were hot and tasty and beat Subway or Quizno’s or whatever in a nationwide taste-test and how they tried to get your food to you in thirty minutes or less, I figured what the hell.
So I got online, ordered my food and waited…and waited…and waited some more. I thought this was a little strange, especially considering Triominoes website has a feed that tells you what is happening to your food: when it is being made, when it goes in the oven and when it leaves the store on its way to you. I placed my order around 7:05 on a Sunday evening, the Triominoes website said my order left the store around 7:30 (missed my thirty minute window, but whatever) and I was confident I’d have my food in time for the Simpsons. The Simpsons came and went, and a second episode was half over when I decided to call the store and find out why the website said my order had left the store but I was home without food going through my cupboards like a crackhead digs through the trash behind Kate Moss’s house.
The person I spoke with told me the driver had other deliveries to make and that I would get my food shortly. My idea of shortly is about five minutes, but apparently the driver and person at the store had a different idea. Shortly before 9:00, the delivery guy finally showed up with my cold order in tow.
I opened the box to my oven baked sandwich and pressed my hand against its cold, clammy exterior; looked my gelatinizing wings and put my warm Coke in the freezer. I attempted to reheat the cold food and called Triominoes again, only to hung up on…twice. I ended up eating my cold food, because I was hungry and I ended up getting mildly ill, probably because I ate food that sat in the back of a car or under a heat lamp for the better part of two hours before being delivered to my door. When it was all said and done, I sent a complaint to Triominoes and waited…and waited some more. Currently, Triominoes has attempted to placate me with a singular coupon for a free large pizza and a bottle of Coke; and they claim that someone will be contacting me with a formal apology; but considering it took nearly four months and several phone calls and letter for them to even send a measly coupon, I’m not holding my breath. But what does it say about a company that will disregard not one, not two and technically not even three written complaints by a customer and then sees fit to call it all even by sending a coupon for a free pizza?
In short, if you’re going to order a pizza make sure it’s not from Triominoes, because from what it seems like to me they care more about besting their competitors and less about their customers. But never fear Triominoes Pizza, your secret identity is safe with me.