Make Bread and Bring Home the Cheddar
In preparation, I ate nothing all day. It was April 2017. I’m not sure how I found out about the event, as it is way outside my wheelhouse to consider going into the city among the throngs of people for food or anything else. How does anyone find out about anything, really? Probably an advertisement, perhaps even a targeted one.
Grilled Cheese Festival. All You Can Eat.
However they might have dressed those two sentences up or added to them, I can no longer recall. I didn’t need any more information than that though; I was in.
My buddy Ray once told me that my wife Tiffany is my perfect match, because she only ever eats half of a meal and I am always excited to eat one and a half meals. An all-you-can-eat situation is, of course, a little different. She would not be able to pull her weight, and so that’s why I fasted all day leading up to it. I intended to eat enough grilled cheese to make everyone in witness a little uncomfortable about it.
This is truly laughable. I don't know one person who left the event happy. If you were lucky you got to sample two croutons with cheese. There were only 2 samples available, the other was a quesadilla. Myself along with hundreds others left within an hour to find an actual restaurant to eat at.
~Bailey Page
I had become desperate by the time we arrived on location, in need of calories and decidedly hangry. I’m on edge in the city under the best of circumstances, and I had handicapped myself into a state of near delirium. I needed that fucking cheese, grilled or otherwise. We arrived about half an hour early, which—it turned out—was nowhere near early enough. The tickets were divided into two kinds: one for normal people and one for wealthy or important people (VIP). Allowing that a third subset had no tickets at all the festival was operating under the same rules as the rest of society, I guess. Tiff and I joined a lengthy line of normal people.
Adjacent our line, another contingent of people was shouting at us. They held inflammatory protest signs and also the terrible burden of anger about our mistreatment of animals. Vegans, God love ‘em. I’m being a jerk here, of course. I have at various points in my life assembled the necessary drive and commitment to subscribe to a vegan diet. This group is not representative of vegans, which contains a multitude of people with variable motivations, some of which have nothing to do with the treatment of animals. This particular group was called Direct Action Everywhere or DxE. They are non-violent, and specialize in disruptive protests or actions.
Here, one particularly exuberant member shouted dairy facts into a megaphone while frothed-up and red-faced compatriots shoved graphic and gore-riddled posters of farm animals in our faces. These people fucking hate cheese, and if you eat it, they might even hate you. They have a three part pledge, which is identical to every religious or cult based doctrine of any type:
Live your belief publicly.
Act hostile toward people that don’t share your belief.
Convert others to your belief.
I stood there famished. Ready to eat basically anything, from any dark or mysterious source. Drool forming along otherwise dry lips. Legs wobbly. Eyes glazed. What grave sin did I commit to have been abandoned to this hell?
“YOU’RE A FUCKING MURDERER!”
“I’m sorry.”
This event was awful....14 of 17 vendors pulled out...it was incredibly disorganized. Total disaster....I have disputed my credit card charge for the tickets.
~Jake Bell
The line was eternal. We stood in the hot sun, enduring all manor of vitriol from the protesters for time out of mind. I lived lifetimes on that sidewalk. Stars came and went. The sun ran its course, fusing hydrogen into helium. I learned the secrets of the universe and died 1000 deaths, each time forgetting what I learned before. One thing I didn’t forget: ticket holders falling under the category of wealthy or important were permitted entrance on time, and normal people had to wait a lot longer.
When our turn finally came, we were paraded down a lengthy hallway and up several flights of stairs. Along this journey I learned what I likely should’ve already known; this was a fundraiser for the Imagination Library of Denver. I was here for cheese and cheese only, but the whole affair was in support of improving children’s literacy. This is “Dolly Parton’s Signature Literacy Program” as the tagline puts it. That’s right, Dolly Fucking Parton. Country music legend. Feminist and LGBTQ+ icon. A woman with a chest so famous, when we first cloned a mammal (a sheep) we named it Dolly because the cells came from a mammary gland.
Finally, the entrance. Here you had an opportunity to have your picture taken with a Dolly Parton look-alike. This is kind of funny, because famously Mrs. Parton entered a Dolly Parton look-alike contest in 2012 and lost. Perhaps even to the person before us now. I suppose at some point you become a cartoon, and everyone comes to believe the cartoon is the truth of things. I’m not old enough to have really gotten to know her as a musical act or actor. My idea of what she looks like would be the cartoon, so I can see how 2012 might be a little late in the game for Dolly to look anything like Dolly. The look-alike was Dolly, from my perspective. A dazzling red and white dress, big hair, and of course cartoonishly large breasts; all of this on full display. The nature of her surface-level sexuality—which has long outlasted her prime—continues to confound me, as I suspect is the case for anyone my age. I am simply too young to have ever understood her. Her recent resurgence in popularity makes it clear that I am also too old.
We didn’t bother with the picture.
Yeah, this "festival" was awful. I almost wanted to join the anti-dairy protesters outside. They looked like they were having more fun.
~Lee Keck
Inside thick lines of humans pulsed and writhed about like snakes in a too-small bag. Chaos made orderly as only a collection of people raised within the American public school system may be capable of. We could only assume each of the lines led toward grilled cheese, and so we joined the nearest one. It weaved about the entire place and through other lines, all of indeterminant length, origin or destination. There was no way of knowing how long it would be before we could eat something, but assuredly it would be a while.
Again I stood on unsure legs, desperate for food, in wait and wondering why the fuck I decided this was something I might enjoy. I am well-practiced at making these sandwiches to my own taste. I’ve got a cast-iron pan which I know well. I am capable of great focus toward a task which has no real importance. I do not get stingy with the butter. I am willing to experiment with ingredients. I have the means, and sometimes even the appropriate levels of DIVA, to discard the end pieces and start anew with bread from the choicest of loafs. Fucking sourdough. Thick-cut or thin. Cheese melted through the permeated dough to form an occasional bit of crisp delicacy in a sea of golden roasted perfection. I’ll add tomato. Or Avocado. Onion or Mustard. Hell, I’ll get weird and make decisions I may come to regret in the name of finding some new and divine combination. I will respect the cheese above all else. Sharp Vermont cheddar. Something more mild but in larger quantities. A Swiss with an exterior sprinkle of parmesan. Regular golden cheddar as the Lord intended. Blends which—if I’m honest—will be invented by necessity when the drawer has gone near empty.
I couldn’t even smell grilled cheese here. The end of this line was signaled by a standard issue catering table, with a black table cloth and silver platters for food. There was no employee to oversee the station. Each platter was sat over a reservoir of water which was suspended over a Sterno can dispensing a flow of heat. The Sterno would heat the water which would, in turn, heat the food for an even distribution. Classy, but in need of adult supervision.
The first of three silver platters was revealed to be empty after I removed the lid. Bummer. The second was uncovered and knocked over—long empty. The third platter was perhaps a quarter full with mac & cheese. Thank fucking God! I nearly wept. The condition of the platter was sub-standard but I didn’t notice or care and quickly grabbed the nearby spoon for a rushed delivery.
Tiff, more composed and less desperate, stayed my hand to point out the obvious. The platter had fallen into the water reservoir, and the mac & cheese was floating inside. The mixture was an abomination, which nobody cared to eat. Even I turned my nose up, though only after several long seconds of consideration. In the end, I determined it to be unworthy of the lost respect I would have to revive somehow down the road with Tiff. I knew at some critical junction, probably decades later, I might attempt to sway her position on some topic and she would remind me that my judgment was in question due to the Cheese Event of 2017.
One time, poor(ish) and hungry(ish), I ate the leftover sandwich of an unknown diner at a restaurant. Tiff was thoroughly disgusted. I still hear about it all the time. At this point the story is nearly 20 years old, and has been embellished significantly to describe the original owner of the sandwich as having herpes and other obvious signs of disease. I don’t deny her this apparently essential ingredient of her love for me. I am also aware of the potential that the embellishment may only be in my head, and hers is the true version of events. It sounds like me, in those days especially, to take out a substantial debt for immediate satisfaction of a perceived need.
Whomever the event coordinator was for this event should lose their job. Whomever sent me the vague email saying that the event "may not have gone off without a hitch" should find another career because that is the understatement of the fucking year. I can't believe I went to this.
~Monica Touch
The line we were in simply bled into another line or perhaps there was really only one line all along. I listened to the disgusted groans of disappointment from the people behind me as they came upon the water tainted mac & cheese. Mine was an elevated position of importance and knowledge, now that I knew what others had yet to discover about the food. I took satisfaction at the sounds they made. I did my best to mimic the knowing smile I had received from the guy ahead of me, back when I first ascended to the next plane. “Yeah… man I almost ate it too. What a bummer, eh?” I didn’t know it yet, but I had more ascending to do and somewhere ahead of me on this bullshit ride resided a collection of people with complete knowledge of this place. If only I could’ve spoken with them, but I suppose there is a purity of experience that I needed to have.
We passed many more empty food tables. Eventually, I stopped expecting them to contain food of any kind. One table actually had beer, but this was not included in the cost of entrance. For some absurd additional fee, I could purchase a small thimble of beer. Several people had chosen to do so, but I was now of the mind that I had to cut my losses.
Toward the end of my patience with this sad parade, we happened upon a section of the building which was reserved for the wealthy and important people. A threshold was formed by a velvet rope; a barrier of powerful magic. I knew I couldn’t cross it, that I would never cross it. Those on the other side likely couldn’t even see it. There was no need of a human guardian to discern whether entrance was possible—all of us knew the score.
Inside was an absolute orgy of cheese. Men in tuxedos circled around women in gowns made from fabrics stretched and bent to the will of a God I will never know. Cheese grease and bread crumbs colored their toothy grins. Tomato and mustard dotted their beautiful clothing. The Dolly Parton look-alike had liquid cheese coating her naked body. Silver-haired men lapped at it like dogs while others watched and gyrated to a music most foul which only they could hear.
Monocles and cigars and top hats. Cheese and cheese and cheese. From the back, a crash proceeded a hush among the entire assembly and eyes darted to the source. Attorney Frank D. Azar stood, towering high above the rest. Seven feet tall at least. I knew him instantly and became hypnotized by his star power. The Strong Arm. Fuckin’ A.
He let out a scream of power and strength and ripped the front of his tuxedo open at the chest. Then he grabbed fistfuls of cheese-dripping sandwiches and rubbed them all over his body while the elite watched in awe and deference. Soon they began to circle around him in preparation for some kind of sexually charged cheese-themed ritual. God help me, I took one step forward myself before bumping into the velvet rope barrier and awakening from my trance. Somebody with a clipboard asked whether I had VIP tickets and Tiff looked at me, puzzled. Although the grilled cheese was abundant, nothing was otherwise unseemly on the other side of that velvet rope, I guess. Fuck. “We’ve gotta go, I’m losing it”.
I paid beaucoup dollars, arranged a babysitter, made the two hour trek into the city, and never even laid eyes on a single grilled cheese. Only redeeming aspect of the night, was I saw attorney Frank D Azar. One of the local celebrity fab 5 along with (of course): Dealin' Doug, John Elway, Jake Jabs, and (God rest their soul) Klondike/Snow.
~Danny Gilbert
In the hallway I saw a guy noshing on the water-polluted mac & cheese, shame coloring his features. I gave him a nod, attempting to communicate that I was more like him than he might be able to tell, without betraying my own position of relative integrity to the rest of the crowd. Out of earshot I pulled Tiff close and whispered “Did you see the guy eating that gross shit? Man.. I would NEVER do that". I doubt she bought it, but marriage is about making the effort to convince someone who knows you well that you’re better than you are in the hopes that someday it becomes reality.
Outside, an official looking guy was fielding questions and complaints so I joined the fray.
“Look, guys, I know. There wasn’t any food really, but don’t worry! We’ve called up Taco Bell, and they should be here any minute now with a bunch of quesadillas!”
Sweet Jesus. What the fuck have I signed up for here? I attempted a refund, and I think I could’ve actually gotten one but at the critical moment I was reminded that the money was going toward children’s literacy. Did I really hate the idea of kids learning to read that much? No. I didn’t. Goddamn you Dolly, you got me. The Vegans had moved on, which is too bad because many desperate people were exiting the venue with hate in their hearts. Possibly the vegans could’ve absorbed them into the cause and grown much more powerful. A sad day for both fronts of the dairy war.
We wandered the city streets in search of a restaurant, and of course we found one. We ate something—Mexican, I think. We made the walk back to the car in the dark, and through a city park. Tiff clutched my arm a bit tighter as we made our way past dozens of homeless clustered about. Her unease is (I think) justified. These people—most of them—are squirrelly. She’s small and basically defenseless. My size and strength has become something I try not to take for granted, now that age has begun to steal it away and I’m realizing where some of my baseline comfort in this world is derived. She was also, unlike me, not raised in the company of weirdos and so their unpredictability makes her nervous. These guys are all at least a little bit weird. Else, they wouldn’t be out here.
Although I was raised among (hell, by) weirdos, I am finding it increasingly hard to deny my normalcy at this point. I pay taxes. I have a mortgage. I own cars and more stuff than I can fit in them. Banks will line up down the block for the chance to increase my credit slightly beyond my means and I will use that credit to make purchases that I shouldn’t make. My night may seem ruined by mild hunger and a net loss of a few hundred dollars, which I will recoup with my steady income and a delayed dinner.
What a fucking princess.
There is only so much cheddar. The size of your slice is largely outside your control. But don’t meditate on that too long. You might end up in that fucking park with the other weirdos when you go insane or simply become tired of standing in lines.
All of the quotes buried within this piece are pulled from comments on a Westword article which described the event as a resounding success, complete with pictures from the VIP area where food was in abundance. I was able to snag the comments because I made one myself, but they were unfortunately attached to a dead link.
If you made it this far, you may enjoy this terrifying bonus image of Dolly:
I hate cheese but... this was funny.
Thanks for the morning entertainment ❤️