PBR Salami with an Edam Cheese Beer Cozy

Cheese beer cozy... Has ever a sweeter phrase been uttered by mortal lips? I don't think so. If you will remember, a couple weeks ago I learned of (and ordered forthwith) the Usinger's Pabst Blue Ribbon bottle shaped salami. As fate would have it an impulse buy at BJ's also left me in possession of a largish ball of Edam cheese. Here she is pictured below.

Instantly the rusty, squeaky gears inside by fairly large head began to think of a creative way of utilizing the rosy red, waxed, cheese behemoth lurking in the crisper of my fridge. I didn't want to sit down with a cheese knife and a box of crackers and have at it, that didn't seem very sporting. As usual with matters of meat and cheese inspiration came to me fairly quickly.

I decided to fashion a beer cozy out of the cheese sphere for the afore mentioned PBR salami. This concept tickled me pink for some reason, and I could not stop chuckling to myself a little when I thought about it. I began by lopping off the top of the Edam, the bottom was already sort of flattish.

After that, I traced around the circumference of the beer salami so I had some guidelines for my cheese carving.

I whittled around the outside of the ball until I had a roughly conical, beer cozy-esque shape. Most of the smaller shavings of cheese went into my maw, I reserved the bigger chunks for other cheesy purposes.

Utilizing a fork and a paring knife I began to carefully excavate cheese from the beer cozy cavity. This was the most delicate part of the operation, I feared breaking one of the cheese walls of the cozy.

Below you can see the large amount of cheese hunks resulting from my cheese craft.

In the end, I thought it was worth it. The resulting cheese cozy was a little short for the long neck salami, but I was thoroughly satisfied with the results.

There you have it, a tall, frosty bottle of salami kept nice and cool in its Edam cozy. What more could you ask for (besides crackers)? I plan on inflicting this on some friends tomorrow at brunch, I figure the whimsical nature of the creation will carry the day.