Aah, tradition. Tradition in the form of a cheese mound! When New Year's Day rolls around, people, this is what you eat. It's a rule. It's sheer delight. It's a hand-crafted cheeseball, complete with the triple cheese effect and a very luxurious garnish of parsley. This is livin', folks. You have not had a cheeseball until you have had this one.
Here's the thing: I have always eaten this cheeseball on either New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, and it goes without saying that not eating it at the beginning of the new year will certainly bring some sort of bad luck. But my mom and I seem to have decided that as long as one person in the family makes and eats the cheeseball, we will all be saved from evil that year. It's a team effort, you see. So, yes, while the rest of the family was running wild on their playdate in San Diego, I was saving them from all kinds of frightening and earth-shattering trouble in 2011. You're welcome, family. I've got you covered.
When you grow up with a special food, it never even crosses your mind that someone else (as in, a non-family member) wouldn't like it. It seems ludicrous, in fact, that the whole world wouldn't love it. So when I first started introducing other people to The Family Cheeseball years ago, I was surprised that not everyone was completely head over heels for it. I mean, who couldn't love an olive-studded, triple-cheese-infused dreamboat? And why was I spending time with these people, for God's sake?
I've eaten this cheeseball at my parents' house, at my grandparents' house, and at all the places I've ever lived. I've eaten it in kitchens and living rooms, at coffee tables and dining room tables and kitchen tables and on the floor, in my bed and standing up over the sink. I've eaten it late at night with my brother in our parents' kitchen, and with many of my friends, who were very good sports but a little trepidatious (wait, so what is this thing again?). I've broken all the rules by eating it with non-Triscuit kinds of crackers, and I might have even applied it to vegetables. I've seen it in perfect ball form, and I remember some years when it was mysteriously runny to the point that it would not go into a ball shape to save its little life. Even through all my years of raw onion weirdness, I still always ate the cheeseball without any hesitation (okay, maybe a little smidge), and even when I was the staunchest vegetarian, I boldly ignored those anchovies that were lurking in the worcestershire and I went in for the kill. It's stuck by my side for years, this cheeseball.
I took a cheeseball over to Colleen's tonight, and we did some pretty substantial damage to it, which is both an incredible feat and an embarrassment. It may or may not have been accompanied by yet another one of the world's best dips (do you know that a can or artichokes currently costs FOUR DOLLARS AND FIFTY-NINE CENTS?! And a jar of mayonnaise costs FOUR TWENTY-NINE?! What is the world coming to? I can't stop talking about how ridiculous it is! And, yes, I know that I sound like a very cranky ninety-eight year old when I whine about things like this.) Anyway, I am here to tell you that two dips, an avocado, and some caramels do indeed make a reasonable dinner.
Anyway, it's time you were swept off your feet, wouldn't you say?
The Family Cheeseball
8 oz cream cheese*
4 to 7 oz. blue cheese, depending on how much you like
7 oz. spreadable cheddar cheese**
1 T worcestershire sauce
2 T minced green olives (nothing fancy, please! just the kind with pimentos inside.)
3 T minced white or yellow onion***
Put your cheeses in a bowl and mix them up with a fork or a rubber spatula. (If they are still cold from the fridge, you'll want to loosen them up a bit in the microwave -- in 10 second bursts at a low temp, microwave the cheeses until just soft. Don't overdo it! If any of the cheeses start to melt, you're screwed!)
Add a bit of black pepper to taste, and form into a nice, pleasant-looking ball. Add some minced parsley to take it up a notch. Serve at room temperature with Triscuits, preferably the triangle-shaped ones.
This makes a pretty big cheeseball. The one in the picture is half of the batch, so you can make either one large ball or two smaller (and much more manageable) balls.
Notes:
*I actually prefer the "light" cream cheese for this, if you can believe it! It's sometimes called neufchâtel, and sometimes advertises as having "1/3 less fat," depending on the brand you buy. It's softer and creamier, so it mixes into the other cheeses better than regular cream cheese.)
**The original recipe calls for a jar of Kraft Old English cheese spread, but it's so tricky to find in the stores here, so I used Merkt's instead, and it works just as well, if not better.
***If you can believe it, I've never been completely smitten with the traditional raw onion in this. On a daring leap this time around, I cooked the onions, which might actually be illegal according to the family bylaws. I minced them first, then sauteed them in some olive oil until almost caramelized. Way more flavor, I think, than the raw onion, and a very successful choice, if I do say so myself.
Welcome, 2011. You're here!
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