SMU grilled cheese wiz wins in Austin,
competes in national competition in LA

By Kim Pierce

While presidents and dignitaries were celebrating the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Center on the SMU campus earlier in the week, an SMU librarian from another campus library (Fondren) was basking in the glow of competing in the Grilled Cheese Invitational in Los Angeles. Tyeson Seale and brother Kobey Seale, a McKinney architect, went to the nationals after winning the Texas state competition.

Here’s how one of the judges, a Zagat blogger, described the brothers’entry: “…two guys who won the Austin Grilled Cheese Invitational with a powdered-sugar donut fried in butter [ghee] and filled with mascarpone, a strip of crisp bacon, and a dusting of crushed-up pistachio killed us. It was just so simple and in some crazy way, utterly delicious”

But their Mrs. Baird’s Powdered Clam was edged out by the LA screenwriter team that made a triple-decker Napoleon Fromage Homage.

“I have competed in the Austin regional of GCI three times,” writes Tyeson in an email, “but this was my first time to compete in LA…. It is a little nerve-wracking waiting for your competition heat, but once you turn on the grill and realize that the two dudes next to you are dressed as sailors [the screenwriters] and you’re dressed as some kind of cowboy – and you’re pretty sure you’ve seen a man dressed as a cheese fairy – and everyone is yelling ‘hot cheese!’ to score a sample of your ‘sammich,’ you kinda think ‘this is pretty awesome, and you’re damn right I want to win this thing.’”

But, they didn’t. The Grilled Cheese Champion was Luck McNulty, for his Recumbent Vicar, described as a combination of seven cheeses. Unfortunately, we get not a clue as to where he’s from.

Some of the grilled-cheese entry names explain themselves, sort of: Beer Smothered Clucker, Put Some South in Your Mouth (made with grits). And some just have way clever names: Neapolitan Blown Apart, Potsticker Meltz, And On the 8th Day the Lord Created Grilled Cheese.

Even though the Austin team did not place, Tyeson’s cool with just getting to go: “It’s…fun to explain to people why you’re visiting LA. Usually their eyes light up, and you’ve made a new friend.”

# # #