(Photo by Cook’s Country/America’s Test Kitchen)

At this time I’m going to have ask Michelle Obama to leave this page and, maybe, go look at amazing pictures of herself.  ‘Cause she’s not going to like this.  At all.

Because this post is about a dish so sinful and glutenous and wrong that it will have to be judged by a special tribunal.  Nevertheless, I implore you to make it the next time you can afford to consume 2,000 calories at one sitting.  You will thank me and curse my house simultaneously.  It’s a culinary bullet train to self-loathing and remorse.  And yet, I can’t help wondering what it would taste like dipped in a Frosty.

Ladies and gentlemen: meet the Cheese Frenchee.

Apparently, this was a wildly popular dish at a now-defunct chain called King’s Food Host. Even more amazing is that this was a Midwest chain and I have never heard of it let alone been to it, because it sounds like the kind of place I would have begged my mother to take me.  Not only would this sandwich have been something picky-eater me would have actually eaten, but I would have also loved the novelty of ordering via the in-booth telephone.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that there is no Wikipedia entry for either King’s Food Host or the Cheese Frenchee so I’m not sure this isn’t an urban legend or a brilliant prank.  The Frenchee does have a Facebook page but it’s got significantly fewer likes than KateCookstheBooks so, yeah, I’m more popular than a sandwich.)

The Cheese Frenchee is a grilled cheese that’s gone through the State-Fair-Machine.  It’s American cheese on white bread with…wait for it…MIRACLE WHIP, cut into triangles, dipped in egg, rolled in RITZ CRACKER CRUMBS for the love of mike, and fried.  If that doesn’t make you weep wrap your head around this: at the mythical King’s Food Host they reportedly served this with onion rings.  I know!

My daughter simply said this was the best thing I have every made.  She was stupified with happiness.

Cheese Frenchees were resurrected in the October/November 2009 issue of Cook’s Country and the full recipe can be found here courtesy of the LA Times.