I think if I had never gotten married, I would have eaten nothing but bread or bread products at home for the last I don’t know how many years. Men inspire me to eat. Which is a good thing. After so many bagels, muffins and hunks of just plain bread, your body starts to talk to you: “have you ever heard of soup, what about chicken, have you ever even seen a chicken?” It’s just that bread is so convenient, and you don’t have to think about it, and it’s cheap, there’s no mess, so because my husband is working tonight, I had peanut butter and jelly. That’s a cheap trick as far as you’re concerned I know, because I’m supposed to be thinking of things for you to cook, so how about sandwiches? At the restaurant that I ate lunch at the other day, they wanted 9 dollars for a croques monsieur. I don’t even know how to spell it, but I can tell you how to make it so that you don’t have to spend nine dollars on a sandwich. Plus I would feel bad if you put peanut butter and jelly on the table for dinner, and somebody said, “who’s idea was this”, and you had to go ahead and tell them the truth, that you got it off your new cooking site. I can just see them nodding their heads and saying “great.”
Anyways, here we go. Melt a half a stick of butter. Grate about two cups of cheese for four people. Gruyere is fine. Stir a few Tablespoons of mascarpone into it, if you have it, or something like it, like sour cream. On top of the cheese add a slice of ham for each piece of bread. Cover with another piece of bread. Butter the top, and invert into a medium hot saute pan. Brush the remaining side with butter. Cook until the cheese is melted, and then cut on the diagonal. Serve with sides of tiny nicoise olives, roasted peppers, radishes, and string beans with extra virgin olive oil or artichoke hearts.