But it’s a food, like many other American staples, which has been eroded by a wave of commodity materials. Heavily-processed cheese, additive-laden bread, and butter are dirt cheap. A generation of children are eating inferior grilled cheeses.

I wanted to rekindle my love of grilled cheese, so I set about by re-creating something pure, natural, and real.  Inspired by a friend, I think this grilled cheese sets an example for others to follow.

A few more thoughts on this grilled cheese preparation. It was meant to be a variation on the standard bread/cheese model. If you search out grilled cheese recipes, you will find many which involve additional ingredients, like tomato, ham, bacon, etc. I wanted to retain the simplicity of grilled cheese, and did so by avoiding the use of those items (at least this time).

Ingredients

• Sourdough bread, sliced, from Breadsmith
• Vermont cheddar cheese
• Wilmot Farms cheddar cheese
• Monterey jack cheese
• Butter, salted

Preparation

1. Grate the cheese. You don’t need too much.
2. Take two slices of sourdough bread. Butter one side of each. Spread it all the way to the edges.
3. Place one slice of bread on a griddle or pan, buttered-side down.
4. Put enough grated cheese on it to cover well.
5. Place second bread slice, butter-side up, on top.
6. Flip after one minute. Continue flipping until cheese is melted AND both sides are golden brown.
7. Remove from pan and slice in half. Serve hot.

What can I eat with a grilled cheese?

Don’t eat ALL of these with grilled cheese at the same time. Pick one or two.

• Tomato soup (creamy or otherwise)
• Potato chips
• Pickle spears
• Potato or butternut squash fries

How long does this take to make?

A few minutes to prep, a few minutes to cook.

Should I experiment?

By all means, yes! An interesting variation is to use pepper jack cheese (spicy), thinly sliced tomato, and a dressing/vinaigrette of your choice. Go nuts and try anything which sounds good.

May I use something other than sourdough bread?

I wouldn’t. Well-made sourdough bread is almost unbeatable when paired with cheese and and whatever else you dream up.

The many articles on this blog revolve around a single theme: eating real food.

People will ask me, “Just what the heck does that mean? Am I not eating real food right now?” as they down a fast food burger or suck back a Diet Coke. In a general sense, sure, you’re eating food. But it’s not necessarily natural. Natural is a big part of what makes real food real.

How about the rest of the blanks? What is real food? Real food has SOLE.

S: Sustainable

Sustainability is the general idea that what you do today doesn’t make tomorrow (and beyond) worse off. When industrial farmers use petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers, they’re taking a shortcut to higher yields. This is problematic primarily because it has lead to globalization of food production and the idea that we need to KEEP using pesticides & fertilizers to feed an exploding world population. So, we’re using a scarce supply of oil to grow food, and then even more oil to ship it around the planet.

Small, organic farms (in the traditional sense) tend to be sustainable because they use little more than solar power to grow food. Sound pasture management techniques can also advance soil fertility (whereas industrial farming erodes fertility which is why fertilizer is required in the first place).

O: Organic

No (or very little) pesticide or chemical fertilizer used in the production of the food. It doesn’t impact the taste (as far as I can tell), but pesticides can build up and stick around in your body, turning those trace amounts into something significant and potentially harmful.

L: Local

Locally-grown food will be fresher and in season. It’s traveling considerably less distance between the farm and your plate than the average American meal.

Beyond that, buying locally-produced food keeps your food dollar in the local economy. For example, if every Michigan family were to eat one meal per week from foods bought at a farmer’s market, an extra $37 million dollars would stay within the state’s borders each week.

E: Ethical

The ethics of food lie on a continuum: there is no binary state with one food being ethical and another not; you can only claim that one food is more ethical (relatively) than another. These food ethics derive from factors related to their production and transportation.

For example, consider a two carrots.

Carrot A was grown 3000 miles away on an organic farm in another country. Earlier this week it was picked, transported via jetplane, and delivered to your local grocery story.

Carrot B was grown 50 miles away, but with some fertilizer and pesticide. It was picked this morning and brought to the nearby farmer’s market.

Which would you buy? Each approach has ethical pros and cons, though in this case I would lean toward Carrot B.

OLD-FASHIONED PANCAKE RECIPE

Servings: 6-8 medium-size pancakes

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour (I used King Arthur brand)
• 3.5 teaspoons baking powder (aluminum-free)
• 1 tablespoon sugar (I used organic cane sugar)
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 egg (I used Grazing Fields, my favorite local humane egg)
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1.25 cups of milk (I used organic 2% milk)

Preparation

1. Begin heating a griddle or pan. Put a little bit of butter on it to melt.
2. Combine flour, salt, and sugar. Sift together.
3. Add melted butter, egg, and milk
4. Stir well until the mixture reaches a thick, soupy consistency. You may need to add more milk.

Cooking

1. On a hot griddle, pour about 1/3 cup of batter for each pancake. It will bubble slightly.
2. Flip it within 45 seconds.
3. Repeat flipping until each pancake reaches a golden brown color.

And that’s it. This recipe should yield 6-8 pancakes. Serve with authentic maple syrup (If you’re paying less then $3-4 for a bottle, then it’s probably fake syrup).

One of the more important aspects of this recipe is the use of aluminum-free baking powder. I strongly recommend it. If you’ve ever noticed a “tinny” taste to baked goods, it’s probably because the baker used a cheap baking powder. Aluminum-free tastes better and doesn’t cost much more.