Two cute snippets of media loose ends to tie before we take an indefinite hiatus from blogging about cheese. We promise.
As previously mentioned, Hot Knives performed a gooey, live demo art show presentation called “How To Be a Fucking Grilled Cheese Sandwich” to crunch-slurp… success last weekend. Framed as an inspirational/instructional guide for how to developing a winning grilled cheese sandwich, we walked dozens of wide-eyed art show goers through our own award-winning sammy from this year’s contest, the French Onion Soup sammy. While pulling neat TV tricks like pulling out already-finished pots of onions and grated cheese, we threw out tips for how to braise onions in beer, and fielded all manner of questions from, “Why use shallots over red onions,” to, “what’s a cheesemonger?”
Although Alex was out of town, and Evan was resigned to perform this sandwich solo, thankfully our grilled cheese accomplice and recipe cohort Mike Dunn was willing yet again to don his chef’s coat and tie for another synergistic grilled cheese event. One of the high notes: we did manage to share Alex’s postulations on cave aged Gruyere via technology!
We also took the opportunity to announce our intention to step aside next year from competing in the Grilled Cheese Invitational. We’re not ruling out playing the role of judge (if it’s offered) or performing something with cave cheese puppets. The three years we’ve participated have been rad, each year better than the last, but there are young whipper-snappers who need to step up to the challenge.
Last but not least, a couple of weeks after the contest, we were also interviewed by Swindle Magazine (above photo snapped by Greg Bojorquez) and the Angel City News blog about our site, cheese, vegan “stuck-on-an-island-with-one-dish” hypotheticals, and Los Angeles. Here’s a bit of the Angel City interview…
Angel City: Do you cook to music?
Hot Knives: Well, we try to pair recipes we post on our blog with soundtrack ideas that compliment the cooking process in a way that, at least for us, leads to positive ‘vibes’ influencing the meal’s outcome. Lately our kitchen soundtrack has steered toward dark percussive reggae jam instrumentals. But if we made a brunch compilation it would probably be heavy on the Fall, the Clash, Burning Spear, Gram Parsons and a token Kate Bush song to hit all the palate notes.
Angel City: If you could only cook one dish for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
Hot Knives: Not grilled cheese, although sandwiches are a tempting choice. Green chili stew was a close second. But we think the answer would have to be Nicoise salad, because it is fancy and variable but essentially greens and vinegar, which we love…
