Cheeeeeeeese!

This is a totally random topic, but I thought about this while I was tailgating. We were at a family tailgate before the Georgia/Auburn. I was feeling a little like death warmed over after a late night out on the town in Athens. Knowing I was about to lose it if I didn't eat something soon, Jim handed me a tiny little piece of melba toast with some pimento cheese on it. I immediately turned up my nose at it. Hrmmppph.

Now, most people scowl at pimento cheese because they think it's gross. Not me. I love the stuff. If you gave me a straw, I would suck up all of the pimento cheese in sight. I pride myself on being a pimento cheese connoisseur. I try it at every restaurant that serves it. I have even had pimento cheese hummus! One of my best friends once said that all my wedding caterer would need to provide to make me happy is a plate of cheese cubes and a bowl of pimento cheese. I never saw a problem with that idea, but my husband steered me in a more conventional direction.

My love for the part sandwich spread/part appetizer began before I can even remember. My Granny has been making pimento cheese forever, and it's quite possibly the perfect food. It's cheesy, creamy, sometimes spicy...it's just perfect. My husband would argue that bacon is in fact the perfect food, but that's for his blog. Anyway, I grew up eating a pimento sandwich almost every day for lunch. My friends would never trade lunches with me because they thought pimento cheese was foul. Again, not me. I always looked forward to unfurling my brown paper bag, unzipping my ziplock bag and finding that dad had again packed me pimento cheese. It was never just regular old store-bought pimento cheese. It was Granny's. Through the years, we tried almost every brand of pimento cheese, but nothing ever compared. There was always too much pimento or too little cheese. The cheese was too finely shredded or not shredded enough. It just wasn't Granny's.

In college, I could never find pimento cheese that met my high standards, so on the rare weekends that I went home, my grandmother would pack me a cooler full of her pimento cheese to take back with me. Again, no one ever wanted it. Fine...more for me! A few years later, I found my first post-college job at the Henry Neighbor. I was too broke to go out to lunch, as was everyone else who worked there. Again, whenever I went home, Granny would load me up with pimento cheese, and it would last me for weeks. The first time I ever took some to work to share, I fully expected everyone to decline. Alas, like a beacon of light in a dark world of pimento cheese haters, my editor said, "Sure, I'll have some." Like me, she loved it. I continued to bring her sandwiches whenever I had the chance. We formed a very strong and lasting friendship over pimento cheese sandwiches and sometimes, when we had enough money, Chick-fil-A. But, for what it's worth, I'd have one of Granny's pimento cheese sandwiches over even the finest dining any day.

So back to this tailgate...holy crap, this pimento cheese was AWESOME. It had peppers, olives, cream cheese and all kinds of happy foods. I told one of the women at the tailgate that I thought it might even be better than my Granny's. She looked at me and said, "Don't ever tell her that." And I never will.

For me, pimento cheese is a whole lot more than a spread. It's a way of being reminded how much my Granny loves me because she's not always good at showing it. It's a reminder than we don't always have to move so fast and buy everything pre-made in perfect little containers. It's a reminder that no matter how far away you move, there are pieces of home everywhere, even on top of a slice of melba toast.