random thoughts – Day 1,608 – (Monday) – security cheese

The Monday remote office lunch was back on the salad wagon. One way to ensure salad is eaten is to have not much more interesting available. The freezer has been bereft of pizza slices for weeks. There haven’t been any take home boxes because there haven’t been any restaurant meals. But I have been faithful with the produce purchases and sometimes it is all eaten. Other times, the garbage disposal is the healthiest eater in the house.

The best way to jazz up my salads seems to be adding bits of all sorts of everything. Today's base of shredded cabbage mix was boosted with the traditional garden basics of cucumber, celery, and tomatoes. This was supplemented with the nutritional additives of broccoli, carrots, and snap peas, plus tasty bits of chopped dates, halved green grapes, and Kalamata olives. And cheese. There is nearly always cheese.

This weekend, while browsing the packaged deli cheese ends in Market Basket and thinking that I probably had enough cheese at home, the realization struck that cheese is a sort of security blanket for me. The thought of running out of cheese can send me into a tailspin.

I imagine it might be like the panic likely felt as a toddler when my security blanket was stolen while I napped (on the advice of our family pediatrician). Or maybe akin to the panic at age ten when we moved to a house across town and while unpacking the box of my personal treasures, discovered that my favorite stuffed animal, an elephant that was missing its ears, had been removed from the box and thrown out. Or the despair as an adult when X1 threw out the tiara I won in a beauty pageant, or years later when a boyfriend chucked my yearbooks. 

Salad with cheese.

The key difference is that my past beloved items were discarded by trusted loved ones without my knowledge, the now, I live alone and the cheese inventory is in my sole control. I can prevent a cheese shortage and protect the reserves. And I do. If there are not at least three different types of cheese in the refrigerator and freezer, I start to get a bit nervous.

We’re not even talking about fancy cheeses here. It’s pretty basic – whipped cream cheese, jarred queso, plus bags of shredded cheddar, Italian blend, and/or Mexican blend, grated parmesan, and feta blocks or crumbles. The packaged cheese ends from the deli are the bonus, with random amounts of American, provolone, Swiss, and mystery white and orange cheese slices and slabs.

Security cheese.

The current hoard of security cheese includes the aforementioned basics, plus two flavors of bread cheese. I won’t run out this week, and probably not next week, either. As the cheeses are reduced to smaller bits and blobs, they are relocated to the freezer, from which they eventually emerge and all come together in a splendiferous baked macaroni and cheese.

Today’s fresh salad was improved by cubes of provolone from a package of cheese ends. Provolone holds a special place in my world of cheese. In my early twenties, I was introduced to provolone at an Italian restaurant when it was an option for a salad. I fell in love with it, and my dear friend of that time gifted me with an entire ball of provolone on my birthday. It’s still one of my favorite gifts.