Cheese Sandwiches and Sundays

Dad, This one is for you......

Today I am feeling very emotional.  I don't know why exactly - it might be that I am feeling a little sick, or that I am exhausted from my hectic week.  What ever the case may be, I am emotional.  When I get emotional, I tend to reminisce, a lot.  When I am reminiscing, I tend to want to write about it.  When I am emotional and reminiscing, food is sometimes involved.  You know that feeling when you want something that your mom used to make for you or that one dish that you used to love when you were a kid?  Well, that's what happens to me.  Food is comforting to me, and when it is a food that I have fond memories of, it is even more comforting.  So, you take the fact that I like to write when I am emotional and the fact that I tend to reminisce about food when I am emotional, and you get this blog post. :)

The food memory that struck me today as I was driving home from church was that of cheese sandwiches on Sunday afternoons.  When I was kid, my parents were split up, so we divided our weekends between them.  We went to church with my mom on Sunday mornings and then my dad would pick us up in the afternoon and we would spend the rest of the day with him.  At my mom's church, they usually served the same thing every Sunday - bean tostadas for lunch with cake for dessert.  Being a kid, I did not always want to eat the same thing each Sunday.  When it happened that the usual meal was not appetizing to me, I would wait for my dad to pick us up and them eat at his house.  By the time we got to his place it would generally be later in the afternoon and there would not be enough time to eat a huge meal, so I would eat something that was filling enough to tide me over until dinner, but light enough that I would still want dinner.  Enter the cheese sandwich.

The cheese sandwich was a staple in my dad's house.  We ate it on Sunday and Saturday afternoons, and we packed it for school lunches religiously.  It was a favorite of mine and my younger siblings, no question about it.  The cheese sandwich held a very special place in our hearts and on our lunch plates, and there were very specific requirements that had to be fulfilled in order for a sandwich to qualify as a cheese sandwich.  Those requirements were as follows: It had to be made with Miracle Whip on both sides of the bread, it had to be made with mild yellow cheese, it had to be cut in two before eating it, and it had to be eaten with some sort of side like corn chips or cut veggies.  There were variations to the cheese sandwich that were acceptable, but not necessary.  For example, my oldest brother would smother his sandwiches in ketchup - eventually he would substitute the Miracle Whip for just ketchup, but that is another story.  Occasionally we would add lunch meat to our cheese sandwiches, but never so much that it would drown out the strong cheese flavor.  Sometimes we would add lettuce or other condiments such as mustard and pickle relish, but always the cheese must be the main part of the sandwich.

Making and eating those sandwiches was an experience.  You would start with the cheese and a cheese slicer.  You always adjust the slicer so that it cuts the cheese in slices about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch thick.  This was thick enough to get a nice flavor but not too thick so as to be overpowering.  Then you would put the Miracle Whip on the bread.  You had to make sure that the Miracle Whip covered every part of the bread and was on thick enough so you could taste it when you bit into the sandwich.  After that, you laid the cheese on top of the Miracle Whip, added whatever extras sounded good, put the pieces of bread together and cut the sandwich in two.  Done!  Your masterpiece was ready to eat.

I cannot tell you how many times I enjoyed cheese sandwiches when I was a kid.  I never got tired of eating them.  They became a comfort food for me.  On Sunday afternoons when I was hungry and waiting for my dad to pick me up, I knew that the first thing I would do when I got home was make a cheese sandwich and head to my bedroom to enjoy it in solitude.  Usually, that cheese sandwich would make me sleepy and I would enjoy a nice Sunday afternoon nap before I participated in whatever the family had planned for the evening.  To me, cheese sandwiches represented everything that was good about food.

Since I've become an adult, there have been several occasions when the desire to enjoy a cheese sandwich has overcome me.  The requirements are still the same - Miracle Whip on both sides of the bread, mild yellow cheese cut just perfectly, the sandwich cut in half.  Each time I make a cheese sandwich and enjoy eating it, I think of all those wonderful memories as a child.  This simple food takes me back to a place where I was happy, to something I shared with my brothers and sisters, and suddenly, I don't feel so lonely or sad.  Today was no different.  As I was driving home, I suddenly felt the intense need to have a cheese sandwich.  The thought of the cheese sandwich sparked the memory of all those Sunday afternoons when I was kid and had enjoyed a cheese sandwich at my dad's house.  When I got home this afternoon, I prepared my cheese sandwich.  As I ate, the smell of the bread and cheese and the flavor of the sandwich took me back to when I was a child.  I found myself laughing at the memories, enjoying the reminiscence, and once again thankful for cheese sandwiches and Sunday afternoons.