Borden Doesn't Melt
Borden American Cheese doesn't melt.
(This is a ludicrous topic with which to attempt to end a months-long journaling hiatus. I have a vast backlog of entries to post. But a highly random post is better than no post, right?)
How has it come to pass that I know this?
Well. My standard breakfast (since completely abandoning any attempt to eat low-carb at the inception of the pandemic) is a bowl of ramen with a couple fried eggs and a handful of baby spinach. The time it takes the water in the ramen pot to come to a boil is just enough time to get all the packets emptied into your bowl, melt a knob of butter in the frying pan, throw in the spinach to steam, add the eggs, splash some water in, and put the lid on. You pour out the noodles into a strainer and let the water fall out, then put them in the bowl and mix thoroughly, and by the time you're done with that, your eggs are all done sunny-side up and the spinach has steamed, so you scrape it out onto the noodles and slide the eggs on top. Perfect.
Note here that when I say "packet of ramen" I'm not talking Maruchan or Top Ramen -- I mean the good stuff from an Asian grocery store. With little packets of dehydrated vegetables and flavored oils and spicy pastes and so on. They cost several times what the cheap stuff does, but it's totally worth it.
Anyway, one of the types of instant ramen that I like is kimchi flavor. And I read that one of the things that Koreans do with their ramen is to throw a slice of American cheese in there. So, having previously tried and enjoyed Ottogi cheese-flavored ramen, I thought I'd give it a shot.
And it. Is. GREAT.
The cheese doesn't just melt, it vanishes completely, dissolving into creamy, savory goodness that permeates the whole dish and bumps everything up by at least two notches. So I have started occasionally buying a stack of American cheese singles to melt into my kimchi ramen egg spinach breakfast.
UNLESS IT'S BORDEN!
For some utterly inscrutable reason, Borden has decided to make a special "melts" version of their American cheese that melts quite well, and to formulate the regular American cheese so that it... does not. It get warm and kinda comes apart into smaller pieces, but it doesn't dissolve into creamy goodness. What, I ask you, is the point of that? The entire purpose of American cheese is to be melty! You wouldn't eat it otherwise, because as cheese, it's terrible! It exists only to melt atop your burger or between two slices of bread or amongst your noodles!
And now I have almost finished the big 16-slice package and I still have an entire nother one to go, because it was on sale, so I bought two. Uuuuuuuugggh! Caveat emptor caseum.
(This is a ludicrous topic with which to attempt to end a months-long journaling hiatus. I have a vast backlog of entries to post. But a highly random post is better than no post, right?)
How has it come to pass that I know this?
Well. My standard breakfast (since completely abandoning any attempt to eat low-carb at the inception of the pandemic) is a bowl of ramen with a couple fried eggs and a handful of baby spinach. The time it takes the water in the ramen pot to come to a boil is just enough time to get all the packets emptied into your bowl, melt a knob of butter in the frying pan, throw in the spinach to steam, add the eggs, splash some water in, and put the lid on. You pour out the noodles into a strainer and let the water fall out, then put them in the bowl and mix thoroughly, and by the time you're done with that, your eggs are all done sunny-side up and the spinach has steamed, so you scrape it out onto the noodles and slide the eggs on top. Perfect.
Note here that when I say "packet of ramen" I'm not talking Maruchan or Top Ramen -- I mean the good stuff from an Asian grocery store. With little packets of dehydrated vegetables and flavored oils and spicy pastes and so on. They cost several times what the cheap stuff does, but it's totally worth it.
Anyway, one of the types of instant ramen that I like is kimchi flavor. And I read that one of the things that Koreans do with their ramen is to throw a slice of American cheese in there. So, having previously tried and enjoyed Ottogi cheese-flavored ramen, I thought I'd give it a shot.
And it. Is. GREAT.
The cheese doesn't just melt, it vanishes completely, dissolving into creamy, savory goodness that permeates the whole dish and bumps everything up by at least two notches. So I have started occasionally buying a stack of American cheese singles to melt into my kimchi ramen egg spinach breakfast.
UNLESS IT'S BORDEN!
For some utterly inscrutable reason, Borden has decided to make a special "melts" version of their American cheese that melts quite well, and to formulate the regular American cheese so that it... does not. It get warm and kinda comes apart into smaller pieces, but it doesn't dissolve into creamy goodness. What, I ask you, is the point of that? The entire purpose of American cheese is to be melty! You wouldn't eat it otherwise, because as cheese, it's terrible! It exists only to melt atop your burger or between two slices of bread or amongst your noodles!
And now I have almost finished the big 16-slice package and I still have an entire nother one to go, because it was on sale, so I bought two. Uuuuuuuugggh! Caveat emptor caseum.