Kid Disses American Cheese, Offends Daddy

I once wrote about a coffee shop that Kina refers to as “cheddar cheese and bacon”, because they sell a breakfast sandwich that I’d refer to as a bacon, egg, and cheese—but I can’t, because I really don’t accept cheddar cheese on a traditional bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. It doesn’t melt properly, it congeals even more poorly after it sort of melts, and it just sort of tastes like acid and salt on a sandwich that, let’s face it, has plenty of salt.

Whenever I have attempted to introduce Kina to a proper bacon, egg, and cheese—which is to say (and I’m not accepting arguments at this time) a sandwich with not-too-overcooked bacon, one egg either fried medium-hard or scrambled (in a pinch), and a single slice of unctuous, gooey, supernaturally-yellow American cheese—my daughter has rebuffed both the sandwich and the father offering it. It is, best I can tell, the fault of the cheese. This is my greatest disappointment as a father.

I’m not entirely sure what cheddar cheese is for, because people who like cheese boards never seem to include a cheddar, and it tends to fail in most cooked applications. A soup, maybe? Some sort of scone? In powdered form, it makes for an outstanding mac and cheese—seen in our third headline today about gentle money. All I know is that cheddar cheese is not designed to melt and has no place on a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. Maybe it’s good on a cold ham and cheese sandwich; I don’t eat them, but it’s a logical fit.

I don’t have some grand point here (sorry for those who have read this far and waited for the moral climax). I don’t like the sandwich at “cheddar cheese and bacon”, but Kina really, really does, and maybe the thing that is useful for all of you to know is that it is by far the breakfast sandwich I buy most (and therefore eat most) in my life, despite its glaring flaw. I suffer for her joy.

Maybe Kina will eventually convince me that cheddar cheese is good. She will never convince me that American cheese is bad. We all have our touchstones. Gooey, yellow touchstones.

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