Return of the Cheddar

Upon arriving in London last weekend, we went straight to Kensington High Street to visit the most beautiful Whole Foods I've ever seen.

Only living in Paris would render the airy, chalk-board sights of this store so gorgeous to me. I picked up some rose petal masala, a make your own muesli, chocolate with lavender, fennel toothpaste and a pound of flax seed (linseed as they call it there).

As we walked to the till, we passed a display of hot chili crackers - on the side it said, serve with aged cheddar so I grabbed the first one I saw and headed upstairs to eat a tostada with beans, cilantro, 'soured cream,' and fresh jalapenos.

We brought the cheddar to our dear hosts who added the Keen's Cheddar they had purchased - half of an incredible cheese plate that we ate this all weekend. The Keen's Cheddar is complex and strong and on those chili crackers? Perfection.

Saturday we went to the Borough Market. I filled my basked with danson jam and burnt sugar raw sugar caramel fudge and some dulce de leche from Spain and as we left, I eyed a cheese sandwich stand. Above you see the grilled cheese, greasy and wrapped, cut with some salad of onions and cucumbers and something else, that I ate on the way out.

If only they'd had macaroni and cheese at Whole Foods, it would've been the perfect cheese weekend.

cheese biscuits

I think Jasmine and I became friends because of these cheese biscuits. In fact, I ate them so much last fall, I do believe they were reasons for my ability to perservere through a difficult teaching assignments as well as my digestive downfall. I arrived at the doctor's office last winter and she asked if I ate many bread products and in my mind flashed the biscuits, 3-4 at a time, days a time. I admit this publicly only because they are that delicious, that soft on the inside and crumbly on the outside, streaks of cheddar running through them and fresh out of the oven, with a pat of butter melting lusciously on the inside, there's not much else you can ask for.

Essentially, I've been using this recipe - it's in the Gourmet cookbook, but I think I was using a similar one, but different, previously. Fickle about onion family as I am, I always leave out the scallions. This week, because I had Montgomery's Cheddar left over from The Dairy Queens, I used this. It made the biscuits so earthy and complex, each bite barely needed the pat of butter.

My excuse last week was that we were having Black Bean Chili (also from Gourmet, published from San Francisco's Greens Restaurant) and they would go well with it. Meanwhile, all week I was scooping out my chili with tortilla chips and savoring 3 biscuits for breakfast. I'm so obsessive about them, they might as well be labeled 'mine' in the freezer where I put them to stay fresh until I pull them out, barely days later, to re-heat while I shower and get ready for work.

Make these, I dare you, and your memories of Bisquick drop biscuits will disappear and every time you have cheddar in the fridge, you will find the 30 min to make them. I swear.