The $20 challenge

I have never purchased a block of Cracker Barrel cheese. While my family uses a LOT of cheddar, my cheese snobbery focuses less on brands and more on type. Offer me a nice smoked gouda or a medium brie (my American palette has not adjusted for the intense bries yet, and forget the Camembert. My husband can eat it, but as much as I want to eat it, I can't) and I'm a sucker. So I'll never fork out the dough for Cracker Barrel, but a $6 hunk of cheese in a rind about the same size? Yes, please.

But back to cheddar. I stick to cheddar for its versatility. I throw in the occasional lump of monterey jack, but primarily stick to cheddar. Unless I'm making my homemade mac n cheese. The dish in the photo contained four cheeses if I remember correctly... Base of extra sharp cheddar and colby-jack, with added parmesan and asiago. The parmesan is the cheap-o store brand in the canister in the spaghetti aisle. The asiago is from the discount store where the pre-shredded little tub costs me about $2.50 and lasts about a month or more (because a few sprinkles go a long way for flavor). The base cheeses are the two-pound blocks from the warehouse club. And yes, I throw in fresh broccoli. I chop it as small as I can so it absorbs the sauce (which is so rich and bad for you but I make this about three times a year) and no one complains about the presence of green vegetables.

But, back to the cheese. At the warehouse club, I think the price of a 2 lb block of cheese is up to $8 or $8.50. The trick is to wrap that sucker really well between uses so it doesn't dry out. And if you plan on making any sort of cheese sauce, you can carve the amount you need off and freeze it until you're ready because the change in texture that happens to cheese when you freeze it disappears when you melt it. (Another trick: if you're worried the cheese might be in danger of getting stale or moldy, shred and freeze for use in soups, chili, nachos or pizza.)

At the discount store, the 8 oz block of cheese is about $2. So the cost is about the same. So if I don't have tons of cheese recipes on the menu, the small blocks will suffice. That same size of store brand at the traditional grocery store is about $2.50. BUT today is the last day of one of those sales at my local Giant (which I noticed because I had to go for work yesterday) of the 3/8 oz./$5 sale. That's $1.67. I'm drooling here. So, as soon as I finish this entry, I'm off to Giant.

My husband and I don't get paid this week, and my bank account shows I can safely spend $20. The musts include toilet paper, greens for our pet tortoise, pears, no stick spray, produce and cheese. Can I do it?

And the pears... Somehow, I promised my French professor (who is not only teaching French but is French) a poire tartin for the last day of class Wednesday. I'm not sure I have enough on hand.