revisiting my cheese conundrum
so Angela's comment on my last entry reminded me of something: There's a conspiracy in this country, a conspiracy to keep me away from my cheese.
See, a long time ago (relative to, say, this morning) in a land far, far away (from you. I live here) I could simply walk down to my local specialty supaamaketo and buy a thing of red cheddar* which was approximately the length/height of a standard "slice" and a bit thinner than my pinky. This block cost me about 8 billion dollars** plus the soul of my first born child, but it was totally worth it. An alternative could be found at Yamaya World Liquors, which also has World Foods but doesn't advertise itself as such so my students probably think I'm an alcoholic when I talk about how much I love the place. They have a block of cheddar roundabout the same size but twice as thick for around 48 billion dollars*^* plus the condition that they'll be written into my will. I went looking for cheddar this past weekend at my local specialty grocers and they'd completely removed it from the rack, no sign, no nothing. Completely gone as if it had never existed and will never exist again. No one even came up to warn me. My world had been torn asunder. "Fine then," I thought to myself. "No problem, I'll hit Yamaya on my way home from Yama Chubu^ on tuesday, they'll have my yellowish red chedder fix." Wrong, fool. Yamaya was completely sold out. I even asked the guy and he looked at me like I was some sort of insane gaijin looking for some mythical beast (probably because I was looking at candy bars at the time, then asked him where the cheddar was, like it'd be near the candy bars or something). I was in ruins. I took my can of subpar refried beans, my delicious tortilla chips, and my guarana soda, and left (after purchasing them, of course). I decided to hit the standard supaamaketo on the way home and deal with their bullshit uncolored cheddar. I bought two blocks at approximately 12 billion dollars*^~* each as they were a quarter teh standard slice size and about half as thick as my pinky. I used both of them in my bean dip last night and it still wasn't very cheesy. I should also point out that these people have no concept of "sharp" or "mild" cheddar. They have a sort of middling cheddar that I suppose is offered up as some form of compromise between the two standard styles.
*ok, seriously. We call it yellow cheddar, they call it red cheddar. It's ORANGE, people!.
**600 yen, if I remember correctly
*^*800-900 yen, I forgot
^and I live in Toyama, get it? (Yama (山) means "mountain" in Japanese)
*^~*400 yen
!we have a fruit named after the color (or a color named after the fruit) and so do the Japanese. Either way, it shouldn't be too foreign a concept
On a seperate note (rant?), I'm American, we can assumedly take this fact as a given, but I have no idea what either American Sauce or American Cream are. I find I have an inherent problem with this as, being an American, I should know about things that bare my country's namesake and are being offered up as culinary representations of it. Similar to when I went to Germany and learned about this foreign pretender called "American dressing" that people were putting on their salads. Now, American Cream looks like it might have something to do with cream cheese, but I have no proof of this wild theory. American Sauce remains beyond my comprehension
See, a long time ago (relative to, say, this morning) in a land far, far away (from you. I live here) I could simply walk down to my local specialty supaamaketo and buy a thing of red cheddar* which was approximately the length/height of a standard "slice" and a bit thinner than my pinky. This block cost me about 8 billion dollars** plus the soul of my first born child, but it was totally worth it. An alternative could be found at Yamaya World Liquors, which also has World Foods but doesn't advertise itself as such so my students probably think I'm an alcoholic when I talk about how much I love the place. They have a block of cheddar roundabout the same size but twice as thick for around 48 billion dollars*^* plus the condition that they'll be written into my will. I went looking for cheddar this past weekend at my local specialty grocers and they'd completely removed it from the rack, no sign, no nothing. Completely gone as if it had never existed and will never exist again. No one even came up to warn me. My world had been torn asunder. "Fine then," I thought to myself. "No problem, I'll hit Yamaya on my way home from Yama Chubu^ on tuesday, they'll have my yellowish red chedder fix." Wrong, fool. Yamaya was completely sold out. I even asked the guy and he looked at me like I was some sort of insane gaijin looking for some mythical beast (probably because I was looking at candy bars at the time, then asked him where the cheddar was, like it'd be near the candy bars or something). I was in ruins. I took my can of subpar refried beans, my delicious tortilla chips, and my guarana soda, and left (after purchasing them, of course). I decided to hit the standard supaamaketo on the way home and deal with their bullshit uncolored cheddar. I bought two blocks at approximately 12 billion dollars*^~* each as they were a quarter teh standard slice size and about half as thick as my pinky. I used both of them in my bean dip last night and it still wasn't very cheesy. I should also point out that these people have no concept of "sharp" or "mild" cheddar. They have a sort of middling cheddar that I suppose is offered up as some form of compromise between the two standard styles.
*ok, seriously. We call it yellow cheddar, they call it red cheddar. It's ORANGE, people!.
**600 yen, if I remember correctly
*^*800-900 yen, I forgot
^and I live in Toyama, get it? (Yama (山) means "mountain" in Japanese)
*^~*400 yen
!we have a fruit named after the color (or a color named after the fruit) and so do the Japanese. Either way, it shouldn't be too foreign a concept
On a seperate note (rant?), I'm American, we can assumedly take this fact as a given, but I have no idea what either American Sauce or American Cream are. I find I have an inherent problem with this as, being an American, I should know about things that bare my country's namesake and are being offered up as culinary representations of it. Similar to when I went to Germany and learned about this foreign pretender called "American dressing" that people were putting on their salads. Now, American Cream looks like it might have something to do with cream cheese, but I have no proof of this wild theory. American Sauce remains beyond my comprehension