Cheese Whore

For as much as I love cheese, I’ve written very little about it here. Maybe that’s because I love cheese most in its purest untouched form. I love a creamy brie on crackers, goat cheese tossed onto salad, a slice of manchego with some prosciutto. When cooked into a lasagna it's hardly worth mentioning. But it’s often an ingredient in a recipe I want to try, so that around my apartment you'll find a magazine open to a page with feta chile dip or a cookbook bookmarked at a recipe for asiago cheese bread. In my fridge right now I have 8 types of cheese: cream, asiago, parmigiano reggiano, it’s weaker second cousin parmesan, boursin, feta, cottage and monterey pepper jack. This stock won’t stop me from wandering around Whole Foods' impressive cheese counter picking up and contemplating every kind of triple cream brie. That's the kind of woman I am. I'm a cheese whore.

I mean, just look at those jalapeno poppers, stuffed with cream cheese and scallions and topped with pepper jack, broiled to elicit a golden brown crispy cover. I'm salivating just looking at the picture, remembering the heat of the pepper tempered by the silken cream cheese that gushed out when I bit into it. I won't lie. I pulled crusted cheese off the foil and ate it. That crispy caramelized cheese is the best part.

In fact, this crispy cheese makes the perfect snack by itself.

To make these Cheese Crisps, take a hard cheese like Asiago or Parm and shred a couple ounces of it. Sprinkle with some black pepper or cayenne for a little kick. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and heap little mounds of the shredded cheese on it. Make sure to leave space between them because they will spread out when they melt. Heat the oven to 350 degrees and bake for about 7 minutes. When you pull them out they will still be soft for a few seconds. If you want to shape them into little cups, you may be able to do so but mine hardened up almost immediately. Ideally you would have time to drape them over a shot glass so they form cups which can be filled with something like a tomato cucumber salad or a chicken salad with grapes. And then you could serve them as a cute hors d'oeuvre at your next cocktail party.

I ate my cheese crisps unaccompanied, enjoying them in their purest form. But maybe they'd be good dipped in something, like the aforementioned feta chile dip. Cheese on cheese? Why not? That's the kind of woman I am.