Introducing Beer Cheese

It may be that there are people out there who think Eastern Kentucky has not produced any delicacies. This is far from true. Eastern Kentucky produces the best molasses (actually sorghum) on earth. People there cure fantastic hams. The most popular soft drink in Eastern Kentucky is Ale-8, which is made in Winchester, and it’s wonderful. Finally, there is beer cheese, which was allegedly invented in the same city.

I guess the list is not impressive, but it’s something.

According to Wikipedia, the Kentucky legislature has declared Clark County (home of Winchester) the birthplace of beer cheese, and–get this–Queen Elizabeth loves it. She took some home with her after visiting Lexington. She probably puts on furry slippers, rocks back in her La-Z-Boy, pops a cold Busch, turns on Keeping up With the Kardashians, and packs the cheese away.

I don’t really know what beer cheese is, except that it’s a spicy cheddar cheese spread. It’s flavored with beer, obviously. Bon Appetit’s recipe, which is almost certainly bogus, calls for flat brown ale. I am pretty sure no one in Kentucky knows what ale is, unless it’s Ale-8. They drink the cheapest beer imaginable. Stroh’s is probably the top seller, although I have known a number of Natural Light fans. All the drunkenness with none of that pesky beer flavor.

I remember beer cheese from my youth. At some point in the Seventies, I would guess, my relatives started raving about it, and from then on, it was a staple.

Some believe beer cheese was invented at Johnnie Allman’s restaurant. I don’t know anything about this place, but my aunt apparently does, because when she came to visit me over Christmas, she brought two containers of hand-packed beer cheese from Allman’s. She also brought one container of “Kentucky Beer/Cheese” from Evans Gourmet Foods. I guess she thought beer cheese was so important, it was crucial to have alternatives from which to choose a favorite.

A lot of people my aunt knows have recipes, but she sneers at them. She really looks down on the people who use Velveeta. My mother, one aunt, and my grandmother were good cooks, but there are a lot of bad cooks in Eastern Kentucky. There are people who use Bisquick and margarine.

I just found the Allman family’s website, and it says Johnnie got the recipe from his brother, who lived in ARIZONA! I wonder if that’s true. It would be a big blow to Kentucky’s culinary legacy.

It’s hard to say which brand is better. I found myself gravitating toward the Evans product, so I suppose it probably wins.

Before my relatives arrived, I went shopping, and I picked up some crackers to go with the cheese I was planning to serve. My local Winn-Dixie was selling Ritz crackers two for one, so we were in good shape when it came time to open the beer cheese. I didn’t know beer cheese was coming when I bought the crackers. They’re the ideal beer cheese substrate, so it worked out well. Saltines aren’t nearly as good.

When it comes to beer cheese, my recommendation is to stay away. I would guess that it has 50 calories per dip, and you are not going to stop after the first cracker. Once you start eating, you will continue much longer than you originally intended, and by the time you manage to pull yourself away, you may be 2000 calories heavier.

Anyway, I enjoyed the beer cheese tremendously, and I wish my relatives had taken the leftover cheese with them, because now it’s taunting me from the fridge.

I’m sure I could come up with a better recipe than Evans Gourmet Foods or the Allmans, but I’m not going to try, because I don’t want to die trapped in a recliner surrounded by empty beer cheese containers.

I feel like I should throw the remaining cheese out, but it’s hard to throw out a delicacy someone brought in their car from over 600 miles away.

The food worked out very well this Christmas. Disturbingly well. I now find myself with pounds and pounds of irresistible leftovers. The prime rib was perfect. The scalloped potatoes were impossible to stop eating. The cheesecake was magnificent. The Texas trash could not have been much better.

The Caesar salad was not all that great. I’ll say that. The dressing recipe I use is not satisfactory, even though it’s supposedly the original. I need to fix that.

I thought I was making a reasonable amount of food, but I still have more than I know what to do with.

I still can’t figure out why I have a talent for cooking. Is it a gift from God or a curse from the enemy? I would be happy if the food I made were merely good, but it’s so good it’s impossible to stop eating it. I have to be careful what I cook, because I sometimes end up with food that is too good to leave alone. It sounds like a joke, but it does bother me. I try to fix things that are okay but not great, in order to avoid problems.

I must have a pound of scalloped potatoes on hand. I really need to throw those out.

I still have a quarter of a cheesecake.

Maybe I’ll muster the strength to put things in the trash.

This was my first Christmas without my dad. His birthday is nearly the same day as Christmas, so he always had a birthday celebration as well as Christmas itself. I used to take him out to expensive steakhouses for his birthday, but we reached a point where that was not practical because of his dementia.

Was it sad to have Christmas without him? No. I was too busy to think about it. I was very busy all month with a difficult real estate closing, and there are still one or two things to deal with, so I had a lot on my mind. I also had to get the house ready for my relatives, and once they were here, there was a certain amount of drama, so I didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on my loss. Frankly, I am still enjoying the freedom of not being a caregiver, so that also factors into things. I didn’t have to follow my dad around and clean up after him. I didn’t have to cook for him. I didn’t have to observe him to keep him from defiling the holiday food. I didn’t have to drive him to any doctors or to the emergency room. I didn’t have to do his laundry or help him shower and dress. I was able to leave the house and run errands.

I don’t care how much you love your parents. If you take care of one for several years, and then he or she dies, you will feel relief, and you will love your new freedom. Even if you’re grieving at the same time, you will feel like you’ve dropped a huge weight, even if you’re too dishonest to admit it.

It’s not easy being chained to a disabled person or to live in a smelly house or to be blindsided over and over again with emergencies you could not have anticipated. When it’s over, you will savor your new freedom for a very long time.

Maybe things are different for people who have help from relatives, but I didn’t.

The house I sold was a gigantic burden to me. I have other properties down south, but they’re not houses. A house is a big obligation. The taxes are high. The maintenance is very expensive. You have to endure several hurricane scares every year; hurricanes are harder on houses than any other type of property. You also have to be concerned about opportunists harming themselves on the property and suing you. Other types of properties are much less difficult to handle. Commercial properties are a breeze compared to houses. You should never, ever own a house for investment purposes. You get all the same benefits from a commercial property, with many fewer headaches. Also, it’s easier to evict a commercial tenant.

Now that my dad is gone and I have no houses in Dade County, I should have a great deal more freedom than I used to. It just dawned on me yesterday that I can travel now. I can put the birds in a boarding facility and take off. I could leave for a month if I wanted to. I wouldn’t need to be in front of my computer, talking to my realtor, my house sitter, and tradesmen.

Sorry I can’t give you a good beer cheese recipe. You’re probably better off, though.