Glossary: Cincinnati Portion of Cheese

I've been toying with the idea of including definitions, mostly just to include any potential readers in terms that have become common between me and my eating partner. I think this is a more likely occurrence than my actually defining food products or cooking terms, and probably more entertaining as well. Although I'd like to tell you precisely what seitan is, you'll easily find a definition if you want one, and I'm no cooking expert to teach actual technique.

So we begin with a term I've already used a couple of times in the blog: the Cincinnati portion of cheese, plus the cheese layer and the cheese inspector.

source

Upon our arrival to the 'Nati, we embarked upon intense restaurant exploration. No, we never ate at Skyline, the chili restaurant whose signature dish is pictured above, but if you'd like to read about what it's like, take this outsider's view. Skyline even had an ad campaign telling people they can get 50% more cheese for free, just for asking for it.

We have run into our share of restaurant dishes that replace meat with cheese, and we've affectionately termed this the Cincinnati portion of cheese. We first encountered what we call the cheese layer at a Mexican restaurant that seemed to have melted an excessive of cheese beneath each of our entrees. Although we do include cheese in the meals we make at home, we don't use nearly that much. We make jokes about what would happen if the cheese inspector came to our house and didn't find enough cheese.

I'm going to round this out with a couple of photos of a recent night out to Covington's Keystone Bar (holla, Pennsylvania!). I'd wanted to go there for macaroni and cheese, and I was experiencing a severe cheese craving. Although my craving could well be satiated at any number of local eatieries, I tried the mac & cheese as well as the spinach and artichoke dip at Keystone. The dip was great; the macaroni was mediocre. There were jalapeno flecks throughout, which did not jive with my tomato and mozzarella topping. I was enthralled by the promise of macaroni and cheese with your choice of toppings, but mine was just weird. Alas, behold the cheese: