Panini

One thing the A to Z Challenge is definitely good for is making me finally get around to writing posts and looking things up.

Nick’s mom gave me a panini pan for Christmas a few years ago.  No, it wasn’t a “you need to cook for my darling son more” type of gift.  I asked for one.  

Shortly after that Christmas, I began my adventures with the panini pan.  We love panini!  

There seems to be as much difference between a panini and a regular grilled cheese as there is between a cold cheese sandwich and a grilled cheese.  I’m not sure why squishing it makes such a difference,  but it really does.

Every time we have panini I always say I’m going to look up the history.  I’m very curious what made someone say, “I bet this grilled sandwich would be even better if I squished it while I grill it.”  I know sometimes I come up with food ideas, and I’m not sure how, but I was hoping that there’d be an interesting story to panini.  Squishing a sandwich while grilling it seems very deliberate and specific.

I didn’t get a satisfactory answer.  It appears that there was mention of a panini in a 16^th century Italian cookbook, though nothing I read said anything about how or why.  They became popular in Italy in the 70s and made their way to the U.S. sometime after that.

There’s also mention of a sandwich grill from the 30s, though it sounds more like the appliance was popular and panini was a way to use your sandwich grill. 

I did learn that most of what we call panini isn’t technically panini since it seems that the real thing isn’t made with sliced bread.  Ours may not be authentic, but they are delicious.

I found nothing on why someone decided to squish a sandwich while grilling it.  My made up theory (since I can’t find a real answer) is that someone was grilling a very stuffed sandwich (because lots of toppings/fillings usually mean a very good sandwich) and was concerned about getting everything melted/warmed, so they squished it into the pan to help the process along.  It seems plausible, right?

Regardless of why, I’m glad someone came up with the idea.  Cooking a sandwich in the panini pan always makes it taste better and seem like a more exciting meal.

Do you enjoy panini?  Do you know how they got started?  Or care to make up your own theory?   

Painting In A House With Cats

We painted our living room and hallway last year (thanks in large part to my friend Crystal’s help; she did a great job with the trim) and in the process developed a guide for painting in a house with cats in two dozen "easy" steps.

- Stash all blinds in car so strings are not eaten and to avoid emergency trip to the vet.

- Wonder where people without cats store their blinds while painting.

- Attempt to herd all four cats into the spare room.

- Wonder what made you think four was a reasonable number of cats to have.

- Capture the one cat who managed to avoid incarceration.

- Remind yourself that your cats are rescues, and that you love them. 


- Re-capture the escape artist cat.

- Remind yourself, again, that you really do love your cats.

- Clean and apply bandages to wounds you sustained during process of incarcerating cats.

- Threaten anyone who opens the spare room door before the painting is finished with death and dismemberment.

- Begin actual taping and painting.

- Dodge the paws coming out from under spare room door.

- Narrowly miss said paws knocking over paint.

- Remind yourself, yet again, that you Really. Do. Love. Your. Cats.

- Lose one piece of plastic sheeting to evil little paws.

- Hope that the cats don’t eat or otherwise injure themselves with the plastic sheeting.

- Re-think signing up for pet insurance.

- Wonder if pet insurance even covers your cats eating plastic.

- Ignore ominous crashes from spare room for fear of what will happen when you open the door.

- Consider lowering your home owner’s insurance deductible in light of ominous crashes.

- Lose several years from life span when paw touches you from under door at 2:30 am because you got a little too close in your exhausted state.

- Consider increasing the amount of life insurance coverage you have; it’s going to take A LOT for someone to take your cats.

- Try to think of ways to convince your spouse that they should open the door instead of you to release the cats.

- Consider raising the amount of life insurance coverage your spouse has.

Fellow cat people, did I miss any?  I'd love to hear your stories of painting with cats.