A staple of starving-students, the grilled cheese sandwich is now the hottest food for up-towners. Of course I’m talking about a grilled cheese sandwich that manifests itself into dozens of gastronomically diverse options.

Load a grilled cheese with whole roasted, fiery Jalapeno peppers and juicy slices of heat-moderating avocado; a slice of cheese on the bottom of the peppers and another on top of the avocado and grill away. Gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches may be messy to eat, but the flavour combinations are totally out of this world.

If you like pierogies, grill them up until they’re nicely browned. Now take 2 thick slices of sourdough bread, buttered on one side and lay them on the grill, butter side down. Lay a slice of cheese on each one. Then load a few pierogies on one slice and a generous mound of sauerkraut on the other. When the cheese is soft and the bread a golden brown, press the two together and continue to cook like a grilled cheese sandwich. Slice and dig in!

The grilled cheese sandwich is the epitome of comfort food and simplicity in cooking; the satisfying, back-up meal that almost anyone can throw together with little time. Today’s modern grilled cheese versions are no longer content to be a flat, squishy orange sandwich. Instead it can transform into a tasty blend of lobster chunks, gruyere, bacon and tomato pesto on super thick slices of foccacia.

Popular in Miami is a grilled cheese tuna sandwich. They take thick strips of sushi grade tuna and sandwich it between two slices of barbecued peppercorn bread with melted gouda and Szechuan peppercorn mayo that oozes from the inside when eaten – yum!

The art of grilling white bread with butter and cheese is an ancient food that was and still is popular across many cultures. In North America, the first recorded evidence of the grilled cheese sandwich began in 1920 when white bread and American processed cheese became readily available and affordable. In fact, it was the grilled cheese sandwich that gave inspiration to the big orange jars of spreadable Cheez Whiz.

Think outside of the box with your next grilled cheese sandwich. Instead of one cheese, use a mix of old cheddar, jack, asiago and goat cheese. Now add some caramelized onions and strips of medium rare barbecued steak and layer it all between grilled slices of hearty Calabrese bread.

Anything you have in your pantry or refrigerator can be inspiration for your next grilled cheese sandwich. Use leftover mac and cheese with a generous smear of ketchup – the kids will love it!

Gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches can get a bit messy, depending on the ingredients you add. If it’s too messy, grill the slices of bread individually with cheese on top, pile on the ingredients and grill to warm completely through, then top with the other piece of bread and slide it into a toaster oven. You may find the messier the ingredients, the tastier the sandwich.

If you like your grilled cheese on the lighter side, you can start with thick slices of egg bread. Then lay soft slabs of Upper Canada Cheese Comfort Cream (camembert-style cheese) and sliced fresh fruit like apples (my favourite is Niagara strawberries). Now gently grill for an ultra rich and scrumptious sandwich.

Other light combinations include pear slices and mango layered with watercress and grilled with havarti and goats cheese. Also tasty is whole asparagus spears with a mix of fontina, brick (the brick cheese from Roman Cheese in Niagara Falls is the best!) and gouda. Keep this idea under a fridge magnet because soon it will be asparagus season.

According to Woman’s Day Magazine, April is Grilled Cheese Month with April 13 is the day we officially honour the grilled cheese sandwich. Have your own celebration of the cheese, bread and butter invention by transforming it into an OMG experience; Oh My Gosh that was good!

Building a Great Grilled Cheese

About the bread
For real excitement, get away from the traditional soft, white bread and try rye, pretzel bread or flavoured breads like garlic and herb. The type of bread you choose determines the texture of the sandwich. Too thick, the sandwich becomes doughy, too thin and the sandwich may be unstable and fall apart.

About the cheese
Good quality cheese is a must. First, use thick slices so your sandwich oozes with warm, luscious cheese. For thick ingredients, use two slices of cheese, one on either slice of the bread so the fillings are encased in cheese. When it comes to which cheese to choose, the sky is the limit. Pick a cheese that will compliment the other flavours; a hearty beefy centre calls for a robust, old cheddar. Fresh strawberries make for a subtler centre that calls out for an elegant brie-style cheese.

About the fillings
The filling is the signature ingredient. You can go with classic combinations such as barbecued steak and caramelized onions or new flavours like bacon and chocolate. The ingredients can be dry or wet, sweet or savoury. You can add one ingredient or layer 2 or 3 different ingredients. You’re building flavour and texture with the centre ingredients.

It’s better with butter
There are no options to good butter. It not only adds flavour but it’s a pure, healthy ingredient that lends a sweetish flavour and dimension to the bread.

Applying the heat
It’s not so much about heat as it is about melting the cheese inside the sandwich. To accomplish this, use medium low heat so the bread slowly warms through and allows the cheese to melt before the bread is fully toasted. Nothing is worse than burnt toast or unmelted cheese! If you’re building a thick sandwich, warm it in the oven deconstructed. That is, each slice of bread should hold half the ingredients. Warm the open face sandwich in a 350F (180C) oven for 5 to 8 minutes, then when warmed through, press your sandwich together and grill like you would a traditional grilled cheese.

Corned Beef Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Sinister Sam’s Caramelized Onions

1 tablespoon (15 mL) butter
4 medium onions, sliced
1/2 cup (125 mL) Taps Brewery Sinister Sam’s Pale Ale
2 teaspoons (10 mL) Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoons (15 mL) grainy mustard
1 tablespoon (15 mL) butter, room temperature
2 slices rye, lightly toasted
1/2 cup (125 mL) cheddar, shredded, room temperature
2 ounces (50 g) corned beef, sliced or shredded, warm

Heat butter in a pan over medium-low heat. Add the onions and sauté until tender, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add the ale, simmer until the liquid has mostly evaporated, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and mix in the Worcestershire sauce and grainy mustard. You will have many more caramelized onions than you will need. Use what you want and reserve the rest for another day or dish.

Butter the outside of each slice of bread and lay each, butter side down on a baking sheet. Divide the cheese on each slice of bread, top one with onions, the other with corned beef and warm in a preheated 350F (180C) oven for 5 to 8 minutes. When warmed through, press the sandwich together and grill as you would a traditional grilled cheese sandwich.

Feast your eyes on over 100 delicious ideas for grilled cheese sandwiches here.

This story was originally published in Today Niagara Magazine.

What happened? I started food writing 20 years ago and it seems to me that with the internet, we have less information today than ever before – less reliable information for sure.

So I’m working on a food story and thought I’d look for restaurant reviews. So the first one I googled was Zagat. So far so good, reviews are written by industry professionals of one sort or another. I look up the Toronto section and discover the writer is someone I know; Suresh Doss. Now, I like Suresh, I respect his work, we have similar thoughts on food and wine and trust his opinions so I’m feeling pretty good that I’m getting some real information. I’m actually kind of excited and somehow feel the pages are full of “inside information” just for me. The reviews somehow seem closer to me than just words on a page and I’m inspired to follow his advice. Wow, this is really good.

Ok, done my research on that page, I now go to Yelp. What the heck is this? It’s nothing more than a listing of restaurants and cheesy advertising totally mashed together like lumpy potatoes and there are no reviews, only diners sharing their comments. My initial thoughts are “who cares?”

Lots of people eat out at restaurants every day and every person has a different experience and opinion. So what does it really say about a restaurant when these people share their comments publically? I don’t know the answer to that question, I really am looking for an answer.

There is no voice of authority to give me the “inside” scoop, no way of judging the credibility of any of the reviews and no way to know who the is writer. It’s important to know who the writer is. What if someone loves fast food and was judging an Italian restaurant based on a fast-food benchmark? When they criticize the service or food, how would you know if it’s being judged based on your culinary values? I guess you don’t. So my question is, what value are these kinds of sites? Again, I’m asking, looking for answers.

Next I googled Urbanspoon and found it not much better, but they do seem to be a bit more serious about restaurant reviews because they label each review by either Critic, Blogger and Diner so you know – that’s good.

Personally speaking I don’t know the difference between a blogger or diner. When it comes to credibility, bloggers are self-proclaimed opinion sharrers and so are diners. So I started to take a look at the professional reviewers and found some great information, albeit, I did have to dig for it. Professional reviews seem to know what information is important and at the end of their review, a more complete picture is painted so you’re left with a better impression. It equals good information.

Next was Gayot. On this site, they want you to fill out a form to find a restaurant. You have to pick out a restaurant by your preferred criteria. At this point I’m too frustrated to figure out what I want – hey, isn’t that why I’m on the website for them to recommend to me? Again, just asking. Or you can go to their Top 10 in any city – good stuff, or sign up for a restaurant newsletter, not good. I did find restaurant descriptions buried under a few layers of instructions, advertising and categories. No reviewer names though. I guess they want you to follow them and not a person. Somehow I am inclined to follow a person before any website. Not quite the authorative review I was looking for but much better than a never-ending list of meaningless public opinions.

What’s the saying? Oh yea, “There are too many people with opinions and not enough with facts”. Wish it were me who uttered those words of wisdom because they seem to fit so brilliantly when it comes to restaurant review sites on the internet.

I did persevere and googled Menuism.com – bad; Dine.to, it’s more of an advertisement for the restaurant than anything else; restaurantrow.com, the site didn’t work; menupages.com, too much text, too many choices, clicked away for fear of being overwhelmed; restaurants.ca, nothing more than a parked-page; eater.com, pretty good, filled with reviewers names and restaurants and they take an authoritive lead here. Ok, this one gets my vote.

So that was the extent of my search. Not complete I know, but these were my top search engine picks and I’m disillusioned enough to post this blog.

Another pet peeve with consumer opinion sites are the really, really bad food photos, Some sites (and I won’t mention which ones) don’t seem to have any lowest baseline criteria when it comes to food photography. Many of them look like the dog’s breakfast eaten twice and it makes me want to stay as far away from the restaurant as possible. How good for business can this be? Again, I’m just asking.

So how is this all helping? Again my questions need answers. My opinion is that, like many other websites, it’s all a game of consumer engagement. The theory I’ve heard bandied about at social media seminars is to engage the consumer. If you engage the consumer you’ll end up with some kind of return on investment. If this is even close to being true, the process of engagement seems to have fallen to last priority or at least when some of these websites were launched, the discussion of outcomes was somehow forgotten. Either way, many of these sites have to be bad for business.

Before I sign off, I want to make myself very clear on what happens next. If anyone has any answers to my questions or opinions on anything I’ve written here, I need you to be very clear on where your comments fall; fact or opinion. Now come at me!

It was the combination of sugar and caffeinated tea that gave the working poor of the 19th century England they’re afternoon boost. Add to that some simple food and it fortified those who had a more physically demanding occupation than anyone does today.

Afternoon tea was not always as dull as necessity dictated. On the other side of town Afternoon Tea was being served to the aristocracy in a manner that defined elegant decadence.

Afternoon Tea is served in a three-tiered plate, each layer representing a different course. Starting from the bottom is the first course of miniature sandwiches, the middle layer is for the traditional scones and the top is for the finest of finger pastries.

Culinary Historian and avid tea aficionado Carole Berlove of Niagara-on-the-Lake creates period themed teas. Her latest was a Downton Abbey Tea. Guests came in period 1920 English dress complete with hats. Tea service, table setting and room ambience creating dramatic vignettes that took guests back in time for an amazing look into another world.

The event came complete with calling cards and Carson the butler to announced each guest as they arrived. “In cold weather afternoon teas would start with a warm soup and in hot weather it would be champagne,” explains Carole as the maid serves everyone warm broccoli soup garnished with a drop of crème fraiche in miniature ornate tulip shaped glasses balancing on a little scalloped saucers covered with doilies.

We laid beautiful hand-embroidered antique linen napkins on our lap as tea is poured. Carole has picked a fine Darjeeling Tea for the event. “Cucumber sandwiches are the aristocratic sandwich of the tea table,” says Carole as the three-tiered plate is set in front of us. It holds beautifully sculpted finger sandwiches, some with curls of “Mrs. Crawley’s salmon” on top. For fans of Downton Abbey, you’ll know exactly what that is and if you’re not a fan, Carole says, “start watching.”

The middle plate shows off Carole’s famous white chocolate, walnut and apricot scones with a few rich butter scones for variety. On the table are silver rimmed toy serving bowls with jam, clotted cream or lemon curd waiting to be spread over the scones by antique silver butter knives.

The top plate cradles tiny little period pastries made by Carole herself. Tiny little bites of feather light sweetness including sexy, thimble-sized tartlets full of luscious raspberry cream.

The perfect end to the decadent experience was Carole’s signature double chocolate mousse served in a miniature etched crystal cups that hovered elegantly over an ornate sterling silver base with accompanying little silver spoons – how decadent was this experience!

At the end of the afternoon, I put on my granny boots, my street-length coat and with hat on head, I walked away feeling a little like Mrs. Crawley as she leaves the Abbey after afternoon tea.

Carole has arranged Tea with Monet and Black and White teas in the past with the same amount of elegant perfection. Each one is only available through word-of-mouth – pity. If you want to contact Carole, contact me and I’ll connect you.