Growing up in Pulaski, Virginia, Jason Alley learned to make biscuits, fried chicken, and more. But when it came to pimento cheese, he preferred the processed, store-bought kind. “We’d get it from Wade’s in Dublin, where it’s pretty weird stuff. American cheese, Miracle Whip, and canned pimentos,” says the chef. “That’s what I grew up with, and I still love it.”
Now, however, at his restaurants Comfort and Pasture in Richmond, scratch-made pimento cheese is always on the menu. Lately, Alley has been substituting local goat cheese for cheddar and drizzling the creamy, chile-spiked dip with spiced honey. “Goat cheese balances the heat well, and the honey and goat cheese thing is classic,” he says. But he hasn’t sworn off the supermarket altogether. “I like it with Ritz Crackers,” he says. “We sell a lot of them at our restaurants, actually. I’ve tried making them, but there’s some science involved that I can’t quite get.”
