It's been a while since I have written the continuation of our cartoon story. Sorry, whoever reads...I am back now, at least for the moment.
I think we stopped where we finally found our recipe, right? Right.
Ok, so we knew how to make OUR pão de queijo now, but let's be honest, who can pronounce pão de queijo? If you are not Portuguese speaking, it's very likely you don't know how to pronounce that wiggle above the "a" in pão and that it all makes no sense to you.
The literal translation of pão de queijo is Cheese Bread, and so many Brazilians outside of Brazil call it cheese bread but being a bread baker myself, to me, that is not bread. When I read bread, I think of a big crusty white loaf, not little tiny balls. Cheese bread I think of big crusty white loaf with chunks of cheese and probably some herbs, not the little gooey balls that we call pão de queijo.
Plus, pão de queijo is what you eat in Brazil. It's the traditional one that comes from Minas. I once read “do you translate petit gateau or paella? NO! So don’t translate pão de queijo”.
So let’s respect that and the tradition behind it. Our “pão de queijo” isn’t traditional, it isn’t made in Brazil and it isn’t made from traditional ingredients. It is inspired in their tradition, but it is a different product.
Cheese bread was discarded right away. Another way we see a lot is Cheese Rolls, but in my head, a roll isn't a ball, it's a roll, a cylinder to be more precise. Yes, I am a complicated over-thinker type of person.
Cheese ball would be good considering it is a ball, but "cheese ball" does not sound appetizing. So no.
So we had to start getting creative.
They are golden, hhmm...Goldies. But that was too 70's. Cheese Puffs, I kind liked that, kept it for a while, but we had to keep exploring.
What's a ball? A period, a dot...a little dot is a dotty. Cheese Dotties. I thought that was adorable and I kept that for a long time with variants of it, like Golden Dotties, P. Dotties, Goldie Dottie, Cheese Dotties, etc...
Until one day we went out for a beer with one of my old co-workers, Sarah, and we told her about our name ideas, and explained how we came up with Cheese Dotties and she said: "how about Cheese Dots?"
Andrew and I like it right away. It was there from the beginning, but we just didn't see it. Cheese Dots. Because our product is a dot. Not a question, but a period at the end of the sentence. Cheese Dot. Period.
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