Grilled cheese in ma belly!
Hubby had the crazy idea to go to the Grilled Cheese Invitational Saturday in Griffith Park. I am often slow to appreciate his vision, but this one hit me pretty quick. All you can eat grilled cheese? Free? Yessssssss.
More than 100 grillers came to compete in four categories. Missionary (white bread, yellow cheese, butter), Spoons (any bread, any cheese, butter), Kama Sutra (anything goes), and Honey Pot (dessert). Each treat came with a ballot and voting was mandatory. The criteria were taste, presentation, wessonality (was it special? not cheesy enough? inspirational?) and weirdness factor. Hundreds of hungry tasters, including me and Hubby, lined a curve of tables four deep, hoping to get a sandwich to taste.
Everybody quickly realized that tasters far outnumbered sandwiches, which made the grillers picky about who they handed their carefully made treats to. The crowd hollered for the greasy bites, chanted "we want cheese," and pounded the tables. I was good at pushing to the front and making noise so I got to taste six different sandwiches, plus I had a freebie from a Kraft booth that was not part of the competition but was giving out free sandwiches all night. That's a lot of cheese.
My favorite was a marble cheese sandwich served on marble rye bread. It was hot, crispy, cheesy and so flavorful. A second close was Hubby's smores dessert sandwich made with chocolate cheese and marzipan. The worst was a sandwich with ricotta cheese and pumpkin filling that was trying to impersonate pumpkin cheesecake. Blech! The strangest was a huge sammy with a thick layer of blue cheese and peanut brittle, topped with a dollop of honey comb. At every bite I asked myself "Whaaa?" and then had a little bit more. Read who won here.
Comments
It's funny that the judges were so far off from the general consensus...
Posted by: Deb | April 22, 2008 2:55 PM
Saw the blurb in the Daily News Friday supplement and decided, "What the heck?, Griffith Park is not too far away and how wrong can you go with a grilled cheese sandwich."
What a hoot! Costumes glore, men in skirts, professional chefs toasting up Velvetta grilled cheese sandwiches - how kitschy is that?
We are definitely looking forward to the 7th lst annual grilled cheese international and hope it's half as fun, tasty and entertaining as this year's! Heck, we may even enter the competition...
Posted by: Aunt Helen and Uncle Thirsty | April 23, 2008 1:46 PM
Yay! That marbled one was, I believe, my friend's second-place "Spoons" winner. So freakin' good!
Posted by: Arlette | April 25, 2008 4:10 PM
This was sooo fun and my team competed this year...and got 3rd place in the Spoons category.
Yeah for cheese!
Posted by: Ginormous Boobs | April 28, 2008 10:18 PM