THE SCARFACE SUPERBABE jalapeño + bacon jam mac 'n cheese

GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH MONTH POST #1

YOU GUYS. Today is the beginning of GRILLED CHEESE MONTH, and I've got one god-damn-ass-hell of a grilled cheese for you. I'm really fucking excited about this post for two reasons. It's one of the raddest sandwiches I've ever done, and I finally had Scarlett over for lunch. She's someone I've seen around a lot, and have been aware of for a while, but we've never really gotten to know eachother outside of running into eachother at shows and stuff. The other week, she posted on one of my instagram sandwich photos "For the love of god can I please come over for lunch," and of course I was like, "Fuck yea, I would love that." She's one of those people who seems to know everyone, not at all for the sake of it, but in the way that she actually has bottomless, and sincere friendship to spread around. She's really creative, in a bunch of musical projects, and I've been creeping her photography for months. It's totally up my alley, and something I find really personally inspiring. She's a photographer for hire, she's got great dj skills, from what I've learned by going by her bar, and she's pretty much just got good taste, and does what she likes. And she's always wearing great vintage, which I totally appreciate, and isn't so play it safe, like me, which I totally revere. Anyway. A creative, and all around good person. Good vibes. Really great to talk to. #girlcrush. (Oh, and if you're concerned with where I got the name, that's just how she's saved in my phone.)





I asked her to make this lunch a collaboration, and to throw an idea out there. She said mac and cheese, I said HELL YES. We figured out the specifics, she came by, we nerded out about the foodporn force before us (while eating bowlfuls of the extras). Ate after pretty much like half an hour of staging, and photographing, then I watched her smoke some hash off an eyeglass screwdriver, and we had a really nice talk about lots of things. Music, photography, boys... A+ sandwich partner and person, if you ask me. "This was really nice, let's do this again sometime." is something I find myself saying a lot these days, and I like it.

You wanna collab, and have lunch with me? Please, honestly, don't hesitate to get in touch. Yes, you. Even if you don't think I'm talking about you, yes, you.

Btw, here's today's sandwich playlist!!!

Here's what's in this one:
bread (Queen St Gluten Free white bean and millet seed)
macaroni (gluten-free rice macaroni)
cheddar cheese
gruyère
bacon jam
jalapeño
chives
Himalayan salt
ground pepper
butter

Start with the bread. You need nothing on this, 'cause everything good's going into the macaroni.

Boiled the macaroni. Add cheese mountain.

Stir. Let the cheese melt. Like so.

Then, after you've made/bought the bacon jam, chopped your chives, and fried your jalapeños, add everything to the macaroni.

 Here's an #actionshot of Scar making the magic happen.

 Then you've got everything all mixed in, and just pile as much of it on the bread as you think it can support. When in doubt, add more cheese.

 Oh, did I mention there's a slice of gruyère under there?

Obvs more cheese on top.

Now butter up the bread, and stick them in a frying pan.

If you've done it right, it should look something like this: a mess of gooey cheese smushed between layers of crispy gold.

F yea, f yea, f yea.

Here's what it looks like inside.

This is where I find out she used to work at this place in Toronto called "The Grilled Cheese" (wtf, right?!), and she taught me this secret they do there. She said, "Now press the bread down a bit, so the cheese oozes out." Shit, wow. #knowledgeispower.

Getting hungry at this point, am I right? We sure were (but we were also totally scooping macaroni leftovers out of the bowl with our fingers).

She said, "now stage it like this:" Good call. Good call.

Here's lunch ready to happen.

"Oh man, perfect hangover food."

The moment of truth.

Approval. Which is good, 'cause it was mostly her vision.

Oh yea, then we made this insane dipping sauce that was like everything spicy I had in my fridge; hot sauce, this korean chilli marinade, tamari sauce, barbecue sauce, and a tad of ketchup.

And because I never show what the actual eating of looks like:

Grilled CHEERS.

Bonus photos of Scar smoking hash, because that's just what she wanted to do post-eating.

All in all, super successful collaboration, good afternoon. Come back anytime dude.

Enjoy your day everybody. Sharing is caring.

xxxx Emily