THE BENDER vegetarian mushroom poutine grilled cheese

GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH MONTH POST #4

This is another delicious food collab with the amazing human being Reiss Reid. 

Sometimes, I really take for granted how region-specific your daily food options can be. I mean, Toronto is the most multicultural city in the world, with over half of its residents born outside Canada, and yes, that translates to an unending list of options of culturally in tact, authentic foods from all over the planet. Toronto really does have one of the best food cultures I've ever seen, in person, or on tv. But why does Toronto have like 10 kraft poutine places, and a giant lack of taco trucks?? No matter. The point is more so about what you can get here, and not elsewhere. Like, who knew, the proud Québec import, poutine (fries, gravy, cheese curds), should actually be a big deal? It is kind of like putting the 3 shittest foods together, something I stand by saying, you really have no business eating unless you're super drunk. But omg, when it's 3 am, and you are super drunk with your new instabestie from the UK, and you find out he's never eaten pouting, OR A GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH, you fucking get on that shit. So yea, you better fucking bet we went for some 3 am sweet potato fry poutine, and then dreamt up this vegetarian mushroom gravy poutine grilled cheese.

maple Hawaiian grilled cheese

So it was my birthday last week! The family tradition for birthdays in recent years, is that we all take work off, and try to spend the day together. And birthdays are awesome, because you put thought into what it is exactly, that you would be happiest spending the day doing, and have everyone participate in. So when my parents asked, I pretty quickly came up with a day of making sandwiches. I invited them over, and had them bring odds and ends from their ever-full kitchen of untold wonders, and made a variety of sandwiches for them, and of course stopped to photograph, so I could get some blog posts out of it. Here's one of them, and you'll see a few more in some past and coming days. 

It was a nice birthday. I like having something totally unnecessary, but satisfying to do. And I think the sandwiches were a hit? I was going to make 3 of this one, so we could all have, and I was kind of looking forward to this one in particular, but as it turns out, I couldn't eat this sandwich because unless expressedly stated, cured meats are NOT gluten-free. But I snacked on some of this delicious Quebec raw milk cheddar. And everything smelled really nice. 

Oh, and then at night, I had a little booze picnic in the park with friends. There were sparklers. That was nice too. It would be great to spend every day doing exactly the things that make you happy, and I try. And of course, it's easier when your wishes and tastes are simple.