Everyone knows there’s only one place in South Walk to get a grilled cheese, and it’s Dino’s. This is beyond question.

Time and again, fast-food cheeseries like Melteez or Cheese Palace have tried to gain a foothold in South Walk. Every year or two, you’ll see an ambitious uptowner in a fancy suit wandering the Walk’s dingy alleyways, his eager eyes scanning for a future home for the franchise so temptingly teased in the documents he clutches. The people, he’ll convince himself, want something classier. He’ll think in phrases like “uptown grilled cheese at a downtown pricepoint” and “family dining experience”. The really oblivious ones will even start construction.

But they will fail. They all fail, because nothing can beat Dino’s grilled cheese.

The only sign for Dino’s is a screen-printed cling on the front door. You’d miss it if you didn’t know where you were going, but, of course, everyone knows where Dino’s is. It’s said that South Walk babies settle for mama’s milk only until their legs can take them to Dino’s door. The lettering is blocky and unprofessional and starting to peel in some spots, but it serves its purpose, marking the portal to the stuffy dining room and the best melts you’ll ever taste.

“Meltz the Way You Want ‘Em”—that’s the Melteez slogan. Step up to the counter and you’ll be faced with a staggering list of options, and if the chipper, cap-wearing youth behind the counter sees you squinting at the menu, they’ll immediately recite them for you: classic American, Monterey, Pepper Jack, Provolone, Havarti, Cheddar, Mozzarella, Dubliner, Brie, Blue, Feta, Chevre, Gruyere, Cream, Camembert, and Spray, and that’s not including the seasonal specials. It’s all imitation, of course, since no franchise is going to waste its money on actual dairy when there’s a shortage. There’s always a shortage.

Then, once you’ve selected a cheese, it’s on to Round Two: deciding what to wrap it in. Your choices, as the youth will declare—a flicker of pained exasperation behind their bright eyes–are white, wheat, rye, pumpernickel, sourdough, seven-grain, eight-grain, buttermilk biscuit, New York bagel, Montreal bagel, pita, naan, tortilla (corn or flour), flatbread, noodle buns, rice buns, and, for the guests with dietary needs, lettuce leaves. Melteez corporate is reportedly still trying to devise a way to keep disheartened guests from walking out the door at first sight of the options.

At Dino’s, there’s one item on the menu: grilled cheese. He makes it with buttermilk bread and real cheddar cheese—shredded, not sliced, so it melts better. You tell Dino’s nephew behind the register how many you want, and Dino expertly grabs exactly enough slices of bread, dresses them each with cheese and a shake of his seasoning mix, and in one swift move—fwip fwip fwip—spreads butter, real butter, on them all before dropping them on the hot grill. Three minutes later, the bell rings, Dino’s booming voice shouts, “ORDER UP!” over the kitchen’s sizzle, and Bennie hands you your tray.

It’s prompt. Unpretentious. Polite in the economical, just-enough, keep-your-distance way. And when you bite into that sandwich, you immediately understand why, for all its 288 bread and artificial cheese combinations, Melteez will never hold a candle to Dino’s.

The butter, rich and indulgent, hits you first, setting a silky stage for the act to follow. Crispy toast crackles as your teeth pierce the bread. The inside is still soft and spongy, and it tastes sweet, with the slightest hint of tartness to keep it from cloying. Your jaws, still closing, hit the hot cheese, which oozes most satisfyingly onto your tongue, and as soon as the tang of cheddar—real cheddar, shortages be damned—meets your palate, Dino’s secret blend of seasonings appears as well, an aromatic glitter wrapped in fat and dairy.

It is, quite simply, heaven. And so is the next bite, and the next, until your sandwiches are gone and you recline, spent, basking in a sort of hazy afterglow.

Doesn’t matter that in the blistering South Walk summer, Dino’s only relief is a rattling box fan and green plastic glasses of ice water. Doesn’t matter that Bennie only remembers to wipe down the crumb-covered linoleum tables once or twice a day. Nowhere in the city—hell, nowhere in the world—can beat Dino’s for grilled cheese, and you can take that to your grave.

Utah Liquor Laws


Checkered finish flag

Throughout the month of August, I'm aiming to write 25 blog posts. This is post #19 of 25. Find them all in the "blogathon 2014" category.

With this post, I’m declaring the August 2014 blogathon over. I could probably try to squeeze in another hasty post, but you know what? It’s vacation, I’m in Moab, and it’s time to finish things up.

Naturally, I want to take a look at how this crazy experiment turned out. Continue reading

Confederate flag

Throughout the month of August, I'm aiming to write 25 blog posts. This is post #18 of 25. Find them all in the "blogathon 2014" category.

[Content note: Racism, slavery, Nazism]

Why… Why would someone choose to hang a Confederate flag across the rear window of their truck (safety concerns aside)? Aside from total obliviousness or outright racism, do you think there is any sort of justification for displaying one’s pride in the ideals of the South that could possibly outweigh the blatant discomfort caused in others by their (justified?) associations with that display?

Lynyrd

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…

Nooooooo Continue reading

Blog blog blog

Throughout the month of August, I'm aiming to write 25 blog posts. This is post #17 of 25. Find them all in the "blogathon 2014" category.

Hello! I got linked to your blog post on KoL by my girlfriend. I very much related to the mentality you share, like expecting free content online, and the sadness of the demise of something you tacitly took for a constant in a universe of variables.

Something I struggle with on my blog (enduringbeta.com) is who the audience is. What the focus should be. I’m curious if that’s a concern for you!

Ross

Continue reading

Lousy Japan photos

Throughout the month of August, I'm aiming to write 25 blog posts. This is post #16 of 25. Find them all in the "blogathon 2014" category.

When I lived in Japan, I took a lot of pictures. Over 5,000. Then, when I returned home, I did what everyone with a digital camera does these days–put them all on my external hard drive and forgot about them.

There are some really great memories in there, but there are also a bunch of pictures that I have absolutely no reason to keep, and have just kept around anyway. I’ll pull out the great photos and share their stories some other time, but today, I want to look at a small portion of the goofy, pointless, or just plain inexplicable photos from my time in Japan. Continue reading

Space Colonization

Throughout the month of August, I'm aiming to write 25 blog posts. This is post #15 of 25. Find them all in the "blogathon 2014" category.

Which do you feel is more important for the future of humanity: the colonization of Mars or eliminating poverty?

bluespacething

Space colonization–in fact, interstellar travel–is one of those areas where I have to keep my views pretty close to the chest, in case the Nerd Police catch wind and strip me of my license. Unlike most folks I know who grew up on science fiction and love fantasizing about the new worlds, even galaxies, we may eventually reach as our understanding of the universe expands, I remain utterly apathetic to the idea of colonizing space. Continue reading

Depression Header

Throughout the month of August, I'm aiming to write 25 blog posts. This is post #14 of 25. Find them all in the "blogathon 2014" category.

[Content note: depression, anxiety, mental illness, suicide, disordered eating]

Depression/Anxiety is a normal thing. You don’t need to medicate it. It’s part of life and a beautiful part at that. There are circumstances in our world that are extremely sad and depressing. As a human, it’s an honorable thing to allow oneself to feel that.
The Polish Ambassador

No.

No, I’m sorry, I can’t let this be.

A friend of mine posted this quote on Facebook the other day. It comes from The Polish Ambassador, an electronic musician also known as David Sugalski. Over the years, I’ve lost much of my interest in bickering on Facebook, so I didn’t raise my objections there, but I have serious problems with this quote, and I can’t just let them go unvoiced. Continue reading

Kitchen Anecdotes

Throughout the month of August, I'm aiming to write 25 blog posts. This is post #13 of 25. Find them all in the "blogathon 2014" category.

Two anecdotal glimpses into my kitchen tonight.

Anecdote #1: Life Hack

If you, like me, are better stocked for bartending than baking; and if you, also like me, love eating biscuits, you may one day find yourself in the difficult position of needing to cut biscuits from a sheet of dough but lacking a biscuit cutter.[ref]At least, I assume I’m not the only person in the world to face this dilemma. Perhaps I’m wrong.[/ref]

Provided you have a Cobbler shaker, there’s a simple solution at hand:

Shaker lid as biscuit cutter

Anecdote #2: Recipes

R and I cook in very different ways. One of us follows recipes to the letter, carefully measuring every ingredient and following every step in the directions. The other is far more improvisational, throwing ingredients in here and there and referring to recipes with nothing more than a cursory glance–if at all.

You get three guesses which one I am, and the first two don’t count.

The biscuit recipe I was following tonight said, for some reason, to grease a baking sheet and then sprinkle two tablespoons each of flour and cornmeal over the sheet, so I faithfully did that. I was running around trying to pull dinner together, so I didn’t stop to think about what a terrible idea this was.

Approximately 52 seconds after I stuck the biscuits, on the thoroughly floured and cornmealed sheet, into the oven, my kitchen was filled with smoke, and at that point, I began to consider that the recipe may have been slightly incorrect.