It must be time for the holidays. I don’t say this because my favorite Christmas tradition, the band Erwilian, is playing on Dec. 17 at the New Hope Presbyterian Church (you can get tickets and more information on their website erwilian.com). In fact, we may not be able to go because my niece is getting married that day. No, I’m officially proclaiming it the holidays because the first cheeseball has been made, which for my family is the official starting flag to this joyous season.
I made it for my husband to take for his annual employee potluck the week before Thanksgiving. It’s actually called Layered Athenian Cheese Spread. It’s a Pampered Chef Recipe you can find on their website (I’m just a wealth of information today), but to us its name is cheeseball; we serve it with Wheat Thins. It doesn’t matter the occasion I make this cream cheesy concoction, I now feel like the holidays are upon us, which is a good thing this year, because so far nothing else has screamed holiday to me.
As I built it, my husband stood in the kitchen assisting. I was using some jumbo garlic I got out of my mother-in-law’s garden earlier this year. I thought it was a milder garlic. And as is my way, I use what my daughter calls “irresponsible amounts.” Turns out I was wrong about how strong that garlic was after I took a lick off the beater and had to chase it with some antacids. Oh well, maybe his coworkers wouldn’t like it and some would come home for the family to finish.
My husband was regaling me with the logistics of these work potlucks and how he hoped they wouldn’t set up the appetizers in the breakroom far away from his station. He wanted them to just set up a table near him where he could monitor the cheeseball. I’d heard his distress over the cheeseball in previous years, so I accused him of having cheeseball control issues. He sputtered denial and added something about people not respecting the crackers served with the cheeseball. Then I said, “What you really have is cheeseball/cracker ratio control issues.”
He paused, then said, “You’re right, but sometimes they take the crackers without putting some cheeseball on them and then the crackers are gone before the cheeseball.”
Personally, I think it’s a good thing, because then there are leftovers. More crackers I can get, but not a whole cheeseball. I started laughing. “I can just see you chasing someone down yelling, ‘bring that cracker back and put some cheeseball on it.’ The person would cower under your rage and claim they licked the cheese off and you would say, ‘let me smell your breath.’”
We were both screaming over cheeseball scenarios he could encounter at work. Apparently all that hollering startled my youngest daughter because she thought we were fighting and we never yell at each other like that, until she heard the raucous laughter. In the end, after we caught our breath and brushed our teeth, I put the cheeseball in the fridge to chill, put a box of Wheat Thins in a shopping bag along with a huge paper plate. I told him all his problems were solved and he could put the cheeseball on the plate and dole the crackers out as he deemed fit.
By around 9:30 the next morning he texted me to tell me the cheeseball and the crackers were gone. Though I didn’t get any leftovers, my husband’s cheeseball to cracker ratio was safe for another year. Let the holidays begin!
Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing and her blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com, on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh.”or follow her on Twitter @livewithgleigh. Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Life section.
