Cheese and Onion Sandwich – A Recipe

WOAH. Let me just take a deep breath, here. Ok, I’m all set. Hi everyone! If any of you are even still visiting here – Hello, it’s good to see you, I’ve missed you! You probably remember from my last post that I have recently moved house. In fact, for the last two weeks I have been moving house. Well, dear internet friends, it did not go well. Indeed, it went pretty much as badly as it could possibly have done. It all started out so well. The previous tenants of our house decided to leave a few days early, which was perfect. We knew there was some work to be done in the new place, and so the builders were scheduled in to finish before we even moved in! It was only two days work, so they were coming on Wednesday and Thursday and then we had our movers coming on Friday. It was beautiful. Nice, neat, tidy and doomed from the start. As I’m sure anyone who has ever renovated a house knows; it did not go to plan. Wednesday morning rolled around, and lo and behold, no sign of the builders. There were clouds out that day, you see, and so they could not replace the stumps in case it rained. Ok, that’s fine. What about the floors inside? No real reason that rain should stop that from happening right? Wrong! They were ‘not ready’ to start that work on Wednesday. Not ready? To rip up a floor? Riiiiiiight. So Thursday rolls around, still cloudy, but apparently Thursday brought forth the necessary feeling of readiness in order to begin replacing the floors. And so they started rippin’ ’em up! Meanwhile, my boyfriend and I are shifting all our worldly goods into two cramped dusty rooms one at the front and one at the back of the house – we did it at night so as not to be in the way of the builders. Note that up until now we have been repeatedly stressing the importance of completing the floors before Friday. No matter what happened we just didn’t want to turn up with all of our heavy furniture and a pair of removalists on Friday morning, with no floor to walk on, nor place to put things. I’m sure you can see where this is going. Thursday afternoon rolled around and the floors had not been finished. But the removalists were not coming until 9:30 the next morning – ‘plenty of time!’ they said, to get the boards down. They’d even start early to make sure. And start early they did! But finish early, they did not. Luckily our removalists were basically super-heroes, who very gallantly (and dangerously) stepped over metre-wide gaps in our floorboards with fridges and washing machines to get them into the kitchen area. Everything else just got stashed in the front room as there was nowhere else to put it. Once that was all done, we buggered off. Assured that they would be all finished upstairs by home time, we left – unable to face another minute of it. Well, needless to say, by the time we returned that afternoon, the builders were long gone. The house was in a shambles. The boards were down, but only half of them were nailed in, and sawdust and spent boards littered the entire house. We had nowhere to live. So we faced a weekend with no home. Home-less, you might say? No, that’s a bit dramatic, but certainly nowhere to stay. We couldn’t move in, because the boards weren’t finished. We couldn’t go back to our old place, because our mattress is bigger than our car. So we did the only thing that made sense, stayed one night in a hotel and then made the trip out to Bribie Island, where my man’s Mum and Dad had so kindly taken us in for a few nights. Let me tell you, when all of your stuff is covered in saw dust, and crammed into three rooms and a car, there is nothing so comforting as a home cooked meal, a hot shower, and the feeling that some grown-ups (Boyfriend’s Mum and Dad) were going to look after you for a little while. We ate like kings and had our first proper sleep in days. It was a little oasis, but it couldn’t last forever. We had to come back, and by then SURELY the building would be finished? No such luck. But by then, the upstairs was done, and we could finally assemble our bed, and get out enough cooking bits and clothes to live for a while. And here we are now. Finally moved in. Yes, the kitchen is still going to be replaced. But hey, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Oh yeah, and did I mention that a few days before all this happened, my car broke down, and my boyfriend had to do a group assignment which had a 13 week duration all by himself in 4 days? No? Well, needless to say, my nerves are now bloody shattered. I need some B vitamins or st john’s wort, or whatever helps with that sort of thing. I don’t know. What I do know, is that this sandwich helped. It helped a lot. And I don’t expect you to understand, though I think if anyone can, it’ll be you. Here’s how it goes: you take two pieces of sliced white bread, and slather them with salted butter. Then you take 3 pickled onions (gasp!) and thinly slice them, and lay then on. Next layer is a smattering of crumbly vintage cheddar cheese, the nicer the better, and finally a layer of your finest salted potato chips. Top it all with your second slice of buttered white bread, and then here comes the therapeutic part: CRUNCH. You press it down with your palm. It’s addictive, that crushing, cracking feeling. It’s like popping bubble wrap. So soooooothing. So good for the soul. Just what my shattered nerves need. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and let this cheesy, buttery, salty, crunchy, carby love-fest do it’s good work. I need it.