I Need a Fix Cause I'm Going Down

Queso Dip

Strange thing about words, like if you never called cheese, queso, it's a weird time to start at this particular time in life.  But calling this cheese dip doesn't quite convey the depth of flavors that include green chiles, onions, garlic, jalapenos, etc.  This as an easy, no roux base or evaporated milk recipe.  I missed out on this delicacy for much of my adult life somehow.  Sometimes you make dishes more mystical in your mind, so never bother to try them, like eggplant or plantains.  It wasn't until recent years that I attempted to make a queso dip.  I remember getting queso fundito at Mezcal's on Atlantic Ave here in Brooklyn years ago and it blew my little socks off.  That was less a sauce then a true cheese and chorizo melt served piping hot out of the oven, in a cast iron dish and my preferred preparation.  

One time I tried duplicating the restaurant's way for a party, and the cheese seized up on me.  The taste was out of this world, but the hardened cheese made it impossible to serve. I secretely ate ginormous bites out of in the privacy of my kitchen that night and refused to give up on saving it for too long before finally throwing the brick in the garbage.  Today, I would have saved it and chunked it out for eggs or shaved it only salads.  Although I love the silkiness of a creamy dip, I don't want odd thickeners to taint the taste of the cheese.  This was really good for a quickie but for authentic cheese lovers, I would go with this recipe that invites cheese's only true pal, beer, to soften and just one tablespoon of flour mixed with the cheese to thicken. 

This was one of those nights after a long run of multiple retail shifts, surviving in a world void of anything too interesting for too long and just needing a break from that reality before I began believing that's who I really am.