Although I grew up in the South, my parents are Midwestern, which means I don’t have a Southern accent (except when drinking), and I came to pimento cheese very late in life.
You see, unlike all the other kids I went to school with, I never came to school with a sandwich of two slices of white bread slathered with pimento cheese. Rather, my white bread was filled with Braunschwieger and butter.
It wasn’t until I was in college that I was introduced to pimento cheese. But then, it was the store-bought kind out of a tub.
Since then, it’s always something I have on hand, but now I make my own. So I was utterly thrilled last week when I went to The Bunnery to meet owner Caroline Labbe to chat about a story for the summer issue of Dishing.
She ordered us one of their newest items on the menu: pimento cheese with homemade cheese twists.
“I had never had pimento cheese dip until this year,” Labbe said.
Blame it on Labbe’s “closest friend in the world,” Nanette Mattei, who brought her own recipe to the restaurant. For a New Yorker, she really makes a mean pimento cheese. I tried hard to discern what was in there. Unlike my recipe, or Allison’s, which yield a dense spread, this was light and fluffy and seemed like it was whipped with cream cheese, mayonnaise and sour cream.
Ask for it as a sandwich with a cup of the new roasted tomato soup. Request it on one of the menu’s new hand-packed burgers from Teton Waters Ranch. Or, just have it as an afternoon snack with a glass of white wine.
But don’t blame me if you get addicted.
