Stockholm: The Calm After the Storm

An image of me with the grilled cheese sandwich, smiling at the camera.

For so long, anything to do with food has been intrinsically tied to pain, discomfort, and fear for me. Even the premise of this blog, which was built upon silly yet sincere musings on different grilled cheese sandwiches, became a tension in my life as my health worsened over the last few years. How to continue eating grilled cheese sandwiches when I believed the ingredients of my favorite food was causing me such pain.

If my digestion — and therefore my relationship with food — has been a storm (just as a storm, my digestive system can be characterized by internal pressure, disturbance, and unusual activity), then what I experienced in Stockholm was the calm after the storm. We always reflect on the calm before the storm, but the calm after the storm — the easing of tension, the quiet in the air — gets less attention. My theory is that this is because after the storm is also imbued with trauma. Naturally — and rightly — our attention is focused on repairing the trauma from the storm and we either forget, or simply can’t, recognize the calm that comes afterwards too. The releasing of pressure. The dissipation of immediate fear. 

It’s usually at this point in writing these posts — after I’ve gone on for two paragraphs trying to set up a metaphor — that I remember this is mostly supposed to be about a grilled cheese sandwich. What can I say, this is just how my brain works. Everything has a deeper meaning. But I promise (well, I hope) that this will all make sense in the end.

I wasn’t sure I would even have a grilled cheese on our trip to Stockholm. Surprisingly, my partner Orlando is often the one to research restaurants that specialize in grilled cheese sandwiches 1) because he’s amazing, 2) because I insist he’s better at finding these places than I am, and 3) because he’s very encouraging of these blog posts. 

So, he did some research and realized there weren’t a ton of great options in Stockholm, at least not any that were easily accessible based on where we were planning to be in the city. And then by chance, we had just arrived and we’re on a bus from the airport to the city center when Orlando realized that if we got off the bus one stop early we would be really close to one of the grilled cheese places he had found.

Needless to say, we looked at each other, and then we got off the bus early.

The first thing that struck me about Stockholm was how quiet it was. We were walking towards the restaurant and while the streets were huge and wide and open, I felt like we were all alone for how quiet it was. But it wasn’t an eerie quiet. It was serene. It was calming. 

An image of the menu at the restaurant.

We made it to the restaurant and the menu boasted only four items — one of which was, of course, a grilled cheese sandwich. What arrived is not what I expected, a sandwich oozing multiple cheeses and also covered in cheese.

This is where the metaphor comes back in. For a long while my stomach has felt like it’s in a perpetual state of storminess (which I’ve written about before, extensively) and a even the thought of eating a sandwich like this would set off a fear response. I might not have even ordered it in the first place. In fact, the grilled cheese I had in Iceland was the first I had had in a long time.

At the time of this trip, however, I found myself in a much better place thanks to a new medication treatment that actually seemed to be working. I was in the calm after the storm. I had so much less to worry about when it came to food, and traveling, and just generally living my life. 

And while I still do have that trauma caused by the storm — a nervousness around certain foods based on years of believing those foods were harming me — I could focus on the calmness I felt as I ate that grilled cheese sandwich. The happiness. 

Granted, this wasn’t my favorite grilled cheese sandwich I’ve ever had. I prefer simplicity in my food, I always have, and this sandwich contained four different, unfamiliar cheeses. On top of that, it was spicy. (I know, a grilled cheese being spicy? What can I say, I’m well-known for having a comically low spice tolerance). But still, I reveled in the ability to eat a sandwich like this (did I mention the four different cheeses? Unfathomable to Sara from a year ago who definitely believed she was lactose intolerant) and not feel panicked about leaving the close vicinity of a bathroom. 

As we left the restaurant, Orlando said, “That was a grilled cheese that took itself seriously”, a phrase I loved so much that I kept repeating it for the rest of the trip. I thought it was funny, but I also thought it was true. And something about the sentiment resonated deep within me. I often think I’m too serious, too sincere (I mean, you don’t have to look farther than the start of this blog post, which is supposed to be about a grilled cheese sandwich and for some reason I start it talking about storms and trauma) but I can’t help it — I love thinking really deeply about my experiences and how I move through the world and what I want to leave behind, and I take my role as a person on this planet very seriously. 

In the past year, I’ve also taken my health very seriously, and doing that hard work made it possibly for me to eat that serious sandwich in the first place. 

So that was the very start to our trip in Stockholm and, as it continued, I continued to feel a calmness around me. As we walked about the city and found the smallest statue I’ve ever seen. As we sat on a boat for a two hour tour, with nothing more to do than listen and talk. As we ate fika in a warm café. As we stumbled upon a Swedish holiday celebration and basked in the warmth of a huge bonfire. As we we traversed into the heart of the city and still I heard nothing higher in pitch than a low thrum of noise around me.

I doubt the storm will be calm forever, but it is the feeling of this trip that I want to remember and strive for during future storms. It was how I felt eating that sandwich — a feeling of peace, of serenity, of quiet power — and the reminder that in taking my health so seriously I had given myself the agency to once again enjoy my favorite things in life. Starting with a sandwich.

Idyllwild, CA: Inside/Outside

This story was written while lying on my bed in Chula Vista, CA. This was originally posted in July 2020 on Medium.

An image of me holding up our grilled cheese at our campsite.

I’ve eaten a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches….obviously. One question I get a lot (and I have probably already discussed on this blog) is: what is my ideal grilled cheese sandwich?

And, of course, I do have preferences. Cheese: American. Bread: white or sourdough, golden brown but soft. Side: sweet potato fries. Drink: Root Beer or Coke with crushed ice.

I’ve had plenty of grilled cheese meals that don’t satisfy all of these preferences, and some of those have been wonderful still. Not every situation in life is going to be to our exact liking, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable or even enjoyable.

This is a story about one of those sandwiches that doesn’t satisfy all the preferences.

—

Almost four months to the day since the announcement of stay-at-home orders by California’s governor, Orlando and I embarked on a camping trip. By this point, the “stay-at-home” situation had become murkier: bars and beaches re-opened to some extent, people were slowly returning to jobs, and it felt (and still feels) as though everyone is deciding for themselves what is safe and what is not. This isn’t a judgement, I’m doing it too. But navigating a pandemic without clear leadership is … confusing, to say the least. Is it safe to go to the beach? And is that more or less safe than camping? And at what point do you draw the lines between living in fear, staying safe, and enjoying life?

Why am I talking about any of this? It’s all to say that this is the mindset I entered our camping trip with: was I being selfish? Was I creating danger for those I lived with? I researched and believed that camping was a safe activity, but, as we’ve all heard ad nauseam, we’re living in unprecedented times and I think it’s near impossible for anyone to say what is safe and what is not with absolute certainty. So, after weighing the risks, we camped.

An image of Orlando as we played a board game together.

Despite these initial concerns, camping was wonderful. After months spent inside, months spent worrying and working harder than I ever have, it was (excuse the cliche) a breath of fresh air. It was the outside. It was more heat than I’m entirely comfortable with, and lying in a hammock, and hiking, and reading a book I fell in love with, and everything I wanted it to be.

—

The grilled cheese sandwich came from a restaurant called Red Kettle in the town of Idyllwild, CA, close to our campgrounds. (Side note: If you have an opinion that ordering take out is not “real” camping, I respect you but don’t need to hear it, thank you).

When I write these posts, I think about the sandwich itself and then the thing that sticks out the most. In Nebraska, it was the friends I ate it with, in Big Bear it was a huge change in a sandwich when I didn’t expect it, in Nashville it was the reminder of home. With this sandwich, it was the inside.

To go back to my preference list, this sandwich was ideal when it came to the inside. The cheese was perfect in type, amount, and flavor. It was wonderful. The outside … less so. The bread was fine, just not ideal. Perhaps not as soft as I would’ve liked. And this led my brain down a rabbit hole, realizing that I had already been thinking about the dichotomy between inside and outside without fully comprehending that I was doing so.

Over the past few months, the pandemic has caused us all to become much more acquainted with the inside of our homes, and fear the outside world. While the outside is not all bad by any means (a lot of the “sanctioned” activities right now are those that take place outside), for me there’s still the ever-present danger of coronavirus that makes the outside less than ideal. This is surely evidenced by my over-analysis of whether camping was a good idea in the first place, and my tendency to sometimes over-wash my hands until they’re raw, and that fear that grips me every time I sneeze. What I’ll say about the inside is that I’m sure glad I’ve always been most content inside my own home.

In the more metaphorical sense, the “inside” (the core, the most important part, the cheese, if you will) of this trip looked the same as all of our other trips: Orlando and I (and Coco) spending time together and making new memories. But the “outside” (the surface, the appearance, the bread, if you will) looked a little different. We’ve been camping before, but it’s still a very new experience for us. The outside of the trip, where it took place, was a lot different than our city adventures.

A (slightly blurry) picture of my friends and I after we got matching tattoos at GLA last year.

This continued throughout the rest of the week as I attended Camp GLA, the virtual version of the Harry Potter Alliance’s annual leadership conference, Granger Leadership Academy. I’ve attended this conference every year since 2016 and am always left with new motivation for personal and community growth. This year, the inside remained warm, lovely, and quite cheesy (in the best way): the connection between campers (even over the Internet), the moments for personal reflection, and the collective action taken to make the world a little bit better. The outside was different, being that the the IRL component was literally gone. Just like my sandwich, it was fine and in some ways better than I expected. But in the end, it wasn’t my preference. Solely for the fact that I missed the moments of sitting around with my friends in a hotel room and walking around a new city and, who knows, maybe getting a new tattoo.

I know that none of the last few months have been anyone’s preference, and I’m trying my best to carry the feeling of the inside — the connection, the safety, the really good cheese — until the outside can match it once again.

Big Bear Part 2: When the Plan Falls Apart

This story was written while lying on a bed in Big Bear, California. This was originally posted in March 2020 on Medium.

An image of me holding a grilled cheese sandwich. The sandwich is in focus and I am blurred in the background.

None of this was in the plan.

The plan, originally, was to celebrate our 10 year anniversary with a two-week trip to China — a long, international trip to a place we’ve both wanted to visit for a long time. The plan was made and the trip was booked in November 2018, a full year and few months before our actual 10 year anniversary.

And then, well, you know what happened: COVID-19. The China trip has been rescheduled, which is fine really because health and safety are more important than sticking to a plan. But if there’s one thing I like to pride myself on it’s making plans and sticking to them, so this was certainly a new feeling for me.

Anyways, a new plan was formed: we would celebrate our 10 year anniversary with a weekend getaway to Big Bear, a trip that was a lot less extravagant but much more manageable.

If you’ve read my previous blog post about Big Bear you’ll know that this is a special place not only for my relationship with Orlando, but also for my love of grilled cheese. A quick recap: in 2016, I found a restaurant that served one of my favorite grilled cheese sandwiches I’d ever tasted, and in 2019 the restaurant completely changed and I was thrown for a loop.

Before driving up to Big Bear this weekend, I had decided not to try a new grilled cheese sandwich. My research wasn’t coming up with any great results and I figured that I had already written one post about Big Bear and there was no need to do something just for the sake of doing it. Given the fact that you’re currently reading my blog post, however, that obviously didn’t go to plan.

And, really, lots of things didn’t go to plan during this trip.

Two of the only things we had planned for this weekend fell apart pretty quickly. A trail we wanted to hike was covered in snow and we were utterly unprepared. Additionally, we wanted to kayak without realizing that kayaking wasn’t available until mid-May. (I blame both of these oversights on the fact that we live in San Diego and forget that weather, you know, exists).

An image of me pointing to the trail we wanted to hike which is covered in snow.

Normally, we visit Big Bear during the weekend and this time we were here mostly on a Monday. Multiple food places that we were excited to re-visit or try for the first time were consistently closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

To make up for the kayaking, we tried to go to a movie only to have that plan change thanks to my horrible stomach problems.

However, thanks to all these changing plans, a wonderful thing happened: I found a new (favorite?) grilled cheese sandwich. A deli we wanted to try was completely closed down so we found a new one called Mountain Munchies. There, at the bottom of the menu, was a grilled cheese sandwich.

This sandwich was so different from my usual. I was enticed by the possibility of re-experiencing a classic sandwich from my youth: a ham sandwich with melted Swiss. (Note: I LOVED these sandwiches from Arby’s when I was young.) (Second note: I’m vegetarian 95% of the time but sometimes indulge in meat-eating when I’m on vacation).

This sandwich was unexpected, unplanned, and absolutely incredible. I savored every bite in a way I’m not sure I would have if I had been expecting to eat it all along.

I’m a planner to my core but even I am learning to relax a little bit. This was our fourth trip to Big Bear and, weirdly enough, I’m now starting to see a lot of similarities between journeys to Big Bear and a 10 year relationship. Both are comfortable and familiar, and both fill me with a mix of excitement and wonder. You can still find newness in the familiar, even after 10 years and four trips to the same place. And when plans fall apart, you’re stable enough to pick up the pieces and create a new plan.

An example: when the weather surprises you and creates yet another change in your plans, sometimes your partner can create something fun out of it — something that surprises a laugh out of you in the morning when you see a message written in the snow.

An image of the words “Happy Anniversary” spelled out in the snow.

All of that is to say, I’m glad we didn’t plan this trip, and a grilled cheese outing, down to the last detail. If I’ve learned anything this weekend, it’s that the plan would’ve probably changed anyways.

Nebraska: Finding a Home on the Internet

This story was written on the plane home from Omaha, Nebraska. This was originally posted in November 2019 on Medium.

An image of me holding up my grilled cheese sandwich at the Farmhouse Cafe in Omaha, Nebraska.

Whenever I told people I was going to Nebraska, their first response was this: “Why?” There were four very good reasons and each one of those reasons was a person.

Somehow, through truly magical circumstances, I found this group of friends. We’re all different ages and grew up in completely different parts of the country. In the last few years our paths crossed through our independent decisions to start volunteering for the Harry Potter Alliance.

As we’ve worked on activism projects together, participated in meetings via the internet, and attended conferences together, our bond grew closer and closer until finally this happened: we all met up in a place for no other reason than to see each other.

Friendship has always been difficult for me. I’m an introvert to my core, I’m socially anxious, and my self-esteem can get very low quite often. I mostly assume that people just don’t want me around. I’ve certainly made and retained friendships over the years, but I’ve never really had a friend group. Until recently.

The five of us literally talk to each other everyday through a WhatsApp group chat and from the beginning we’ve had a sort of shorthand with each other on account of the fact that we’re all activists, Harry Potter nerds, and residents of the internet. I’m truly grateful that since meeting each one of these humans I’ve felt not only understood, but accepted.

But what does any of that have to do with grilled cheese sandwiches?

—

My whole thing with grilled cheese sandwiches first became a thing within the HPA community. Now it’s something that family, high school friends, and coworkers know about me, but at first it was pretty much just fellow HPA volunteers. There are numerous ways in which these friends I found through the HPA have accepted me, and as trivial it may seem, my love of grilled cheese is one of them.

It is not uncommon for one of them to post in our group chat “eating a grilled cheese and thinking of Sara” or something of that nature. In fact, it was one of these friends who encouraged me to start this blog in the first place, and another one who suggested the name for the blog.

So when it came to this trip, there was absolutely no question about whether we’d have a grilled cheese meal. I didn’t have to explain that this was a thing I did in ever new city I visited, because they all knew already. My friend who actually lives in Omaha knew which place we’d go to (the Farmhouse Cafe), and we drove there pretty much right after we all arrived from the airport.

As for the sandwich itself, it was physically different from any other I’ve had yet. It was a triple decker grilled cheese (so: bread-cheese-bread-cheese-bread) and it was on marble bread. (I still don’t really know what that means). The waiter asked me if I wanted it on different bread, but I said no because I wanted to experience it in the way it was meant. I honestly don’t remember what kind of cheese was on it, because I was too overwhelmed by the fact that I was sitting at a restaurant in Nebraska with my friends. Months previous we had made a joke about all of us going to Nebraska, and now it was actually happening. The sandwich was good, but at the risk of sounding like a complete cornball, the company was better.

—

I kind of hate the phrase “internet friends” because it feels dismissive to me. In today’s day and age, I wholeheartedly believe that friendships can be as strong as they are over the internet as they are in person. This weekend felt like our group chat come to life: my friends quoting vines while I (the self-proclaimed grandma) don’t know what they’re referencing but laugh along anyways because I can’t not laugh when they do, singing Hamilton together, discussing the political situation in Nebraska, talking about Harry Potter, and just generally making memories together.

As I got onto my flight home, I remembered that I actually left half of my grilled cheese sandwich in my friend’s fridge. Obviously it’ll get thrown away soon, but I was weirdly comforted by the fact that this thing that was a part of our trip still remained in my friend’s home, at least for a little bit longer.

I have seen some combination of this group of friends in Omaha, Philadelphia, Tucson, New York City, Los Angeles, and Dallas. Until the next time we find ourselves in a new city together, we’ll always find a home together on the internet.

—

This is the last picture the five of us took on our Nebraska trip. We’re standing in a room full of pinball machines and all smiling at the camera.

Mexico City & Oaxaca: Expectations vs. Reality

This story was written while lying on a bed in Oaxaca, Mexico & while sitting at my kitchen table in San Diego, CA. This was originally posted in November 2019 on Medium.

An image of someone cooking tortillas on a type of grill. This was at a market very close to our Airbnb in the barrio of Xochimilco in Oaxaca.

The premise of this entire blog is that I tell stories about new places I visit through my experiences of eating grilled cheese sandwiches in those new places. When it came to this trip to Mexico City and Oaxaca, I’ve been struggling with what story to tell.

Usually how this goes is that when I know I’m going to visit a new city, I research a food place that specializes in grilled cheese sandwiches. I knew that wasn’t going to happen here, and in this case, I didn’t want it to. Instead, I had four unplanned “grilled cheese experiences” on this trip:

First up was an amazing potato and cheese quesadilla we found at the largest market in Mexico City. (I’m still mad at myself for not getting a picture of it). In a happy coincidence, my partner Orlando’s mom was in Mexico City at the same time as us. On the day we spent together, we visited La Lagunilla Market and spent hours wandering around. Eventually, we needed food and came upon a stand run by a few women who were seemingly from three different generations. The quesadilla itself was everything I could ask for: warm, soft, and so, so good.

Secondly, after a somewhat stressful travel day from Mexico City to Oaxaca, we ventured outside of our Airbnb to eat at a traditional Oaxacan restaurant. I saw something on the menu, and could recognize most of the words, so I went for it. As we sat there waiting for the food to arrive, Orlando said something vaguely like, “You know, I think you might’ve just ordered a grilled cheese.” Sure enough, when my food arrived, it looked like… well, like a sandwich with cheese that had been grilled.

An image of the torta I ordered in Oaxaca.

I think about these blog posts a lot on my trips nowadays. I love this because it gives me a way to process what I see and learn while I travel. So when I saw this, I thought, “This is the sandwich my post can be about. The one I didn’t mean to find, especially at a traditional Oaxacan restaurant. Maybe it was ignorant of me to think there wouldn’t be something so similar to a grilled cheese sandwich here in Mexico.” (Side note: I do think it was a bit ignorant of me. Tortas exist, duh Sara). But… it wasn’t as familiar as I thought just from looking at it. While the outside was seemingly grilled, the cheese inside was not melted, and was very different from what I expected when it was first placed in front of me.

Thirdly, on our way to a cemetery tour on Halloween night (more on that later), we stopped by a place called Tito’s and I ordered a torta con quesillo (what you call cheese in Oaxaca). By now, I remembered that tortas exist and so this time I expected something similar to a grilled cheese. This is definitely the closest I found to what I think of as a grilled cheese sandwich, and yet (unexpectedly) it was not my favorite out of these four experiences.

Before this trip even started, I had a notion that my “grilled cheese sandwich” here would be a simple quesadilla. As I talked with people who knew about my trip (and my weird grilled cheese thing), they expected this too. So, finally, on our second to last night in Mexico, there was a Día de Muertos market right outside of our Airbnb. I ordered my first (and only) straight up quesadilla of the trip. Tortilla, cheese, and nothing else.

—

We constantly navigate life with expectations in our minds, but especially so when visiting somewhere new. What is that building going to look like? What am I going to eat? How will I feel when visiting this place? Then, there’s reality. Sometimes those two things match up pretty well, and other times they don’t. This is true of any vacation, but I noticed it especially so on this one. I found myself confronting these expectations I had formed in my mind throughout the whole trip, whether it was with food or other experiences.

Expectation: I would eat a loooot of flour tortillas on this trip. (My favorite).

Reality: Corn tortilla is much, much more common in this part of Mexico and I never once saw (let alone ate) a flour tortilla.

Expectation: Every protest I’ve ever seen in a large city has been advocating for progressive policy or change.

Reality: On our first day in Mexico City, a huge anti-abortion protest interrupted our walking tour.

Expectation: I would fall in love with Oaxaca.

Reality: I liked it, but I enjoyed Mexico City a lot more!

And then, there was the expectation and reality surrounding Día de Muertos.

—

Last year was the first time I truly celebrated this holiday. Orlando’s brother and sister-in-law hosted, and, as a family, we sat around a kitchen table for hours listening to and telling stories about our loved ones who had died. I found the experience really nice and I think of it fondly. I loved how the focus was on celebrating their lives and feeling happy that we knew them in the first place. It all felt very cathartic and I learned new things about people (living and dead) that I had known for years in some cases. I didn’t fully internalize this at the time, but this experience formed by expectations for what it meant to celebrate this holiday: family, closeness, celebration, happiness, memory, and love.

Orlando and I already had Mexico City on our “potential places to visit” list for a while, but this (along with the movie Coco, yes) really inspired me to want to see the celebrations first hand. When I finally got there, a lot matched up with my expectations: the flowers, the alters, the offerings, the pictures. But a lot was different than I expected: the multiple parades in Mexico City, learning that the parades only started a few years ago thanks to a scene in a James Bond movie (…what?), pan de muerto, and much more. What was most unexpected though, was how I felt about myself.

An image of a gravesite decorated for Día de Muertos. There are numerous flowers, candles, and skulls.

When planning this trip, I saw that one thing recommended to do for Día de Muertos was to visit a cemetery. I was really excited about this opportunity, so Orlando and I signed up for a tour and were on our way. Once at the cemetery, however, I started to feel… guilty. The cemetery was immensely crowded — how much of that was normal and how much was because this event has become overrun with tourists? I walked amongst the graves and passed people who were obviously sitting at that particular grave because it was for their family member. Was it okay for me to take a picture of that grave? Am I intruding? Should I be here at all? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions.

At one point I passed someone emphatically (and guiltily) saying to their partner, in English, “These people are mourning their dead.” Seems at least one other person was having similar thoughts to me.

My understanding of Día de Muertos is that it is a holiday of celebration, rather than sadness. I could see this around me, in the liveliness of the cemeteries and the markets. But, I still don’t know how the local Oaxacans felt about tourists visiting during these celebrations, which seem inherently personal to me. Likely, they all have varied and nuanced opinions. And how do I, personally, reconcile the fact that I was there with my partner, who is Mexican? Again, I don’t have answers at this exact moment in time. I just know that in this case, the reality of the experience was completely different than my expectations.

To be honest, part of me even felt guilty about wanting a grilled cheese experience in a place with such varied and exciting food. Out of the four grilled cheese-esque experiences I mentioned above, my favorite was not 2 or 3 (those that most resembled a typical grilled cheese sandwich), or even number 4 (the one I expected when going into this trip). My favorite was number 1, a meal that I couldn’t have researched even if I tried. The one found at a random stall in the largest market in Mexico City, and the only one I don’t have recorded in pictures.

I’m glad that I didn’t seek those experiences out like I normally would, didn’t let my expectations get in the way, and instead let the cheese and grilled bread (or, you know, tortillas) find me. I couldn’t have predicted where I would find them, in markets and in traditional restaurants, but I’m glad. If anything, these meals allowed me to think deeply about what I expected out of the trip, the reality, and, interestingly, my place in all the in between.

An image of me holding two quesadillas and smiling.