Cheese
I have a love/hate relationship with cheese.
I love it on pizza. I hate it if it smells funny. (Romano, I'm looking at you.) I love it in enchiladas. I hate it if it is too hard. (That would be Cheddar.)
Back in college, I was so convinced that cheese was bad, I actually tried the fat-free variety. It was tasteless and rubbery, and didn't satisfy properly. I soon caved and learned that eating healthy is the key to weight maintenance...not getting rid of cheese in your diet. I still cringe at the thought of eating fat-free cheese. Something is just wrong with that.
The dichotomy extends into macaroni and cheese, too. I was raised on Kraft, which for a while was okay, but I'd only eat it with a fork. Why? So the cheese sauce would drip off of the noodles and into the bowl. It just had too much cheese. Someone tried to serve me Velveeta brand once, but I turned up my nose. To this day, I'll eat homemade mac and cheese if someone serves it to me, but I find it too cheesy, too rich, and just plain overbaked.
When the kids came along, I certainly wasn't going to try to make homemade macaroni, so I tried Annie's, a brand that the kids and I both love. I still eat it with a fork, but I find the taste and texture much more palatable than any other boxed variety. Usually, Melina eats Annie's; in fact, she loves it. But today, at the grocery store, she saw a Deluxe Kraft version that reminded her of the homemade version she had out to lunch 2 weeks ago. Can we try it, she asked? Uh, well, okay, I replied.
Let me tell you this. I can't figure out how or why the Deluxe Kraft version is out there and selling. It creeped me out to squeeze the cheese onto the noodles, and when I tasted it (since I always taste something before I give it to my kids), I almost spit it out. The meal was the equivalent of making noodles and melting American cheese on top.
Which brings me to a question I have always had: How can American cheese, the processed slice of dairy and chemicals, actually be called cheese at all? There is no love/hate about that orange square; it falls wholly in the hate category.
I love it on pizza. I hate it if it smells funny. (Romano, I'm looking at you.) I love it in enchiladas. I hate it if it is too hard. (That would be Cheddar.)
Back in college, I was so convinced that cheese was bad, I actually tried the fat-free variety. It was tasteless and rubbery, and didn't satisfy properly. I soon caved and learned that eating healthy is the key to weight maintenance...not getting rid of cheese in your diet. I still cringe at the thought of eating fat-free cheese. Something is just wrong with that.
The dichotomy extends into macaroni and cheese, too. I was raised on Kraft, which for a while was okay, but I'd only eat it with a fork. Why? So the cheese sauce would drip off of the noodles and into the bowl. It just had too much cheese. Someone tried to serve me Velveeta brand once, but I turned up my nose. To this day, I'll eat homemade mac and cheese if someone serves it to me, but I find it too cheesy, too rich, and just plain overbaked.
When the kids came along, I certainly wasn't going to try to make homemade macaroni, so I tried Annie's, a brand that the kids and I both love. I still eat it with a fork, but I find the taste and texture much more palatable than any other boxed variety. Usually, Melina eats Annie's; in fact, she loves it. But today, at the grocery store, she saw a Deluxe Kraft version that reminded her of the homemade version she had out to lunch 2 weeks ago. Can we try it, she asked? Uh, well, okay, I replied.
Let me tell you this. I can't figure out how or why the Deluxe Kraft version is out there and selling. It creeped me out to squeeze the cheese onto the noodles, and when I tasted it (since I always taste something before I give it to my kids), I almost spit it out. The meal was the equivalent of making noodles and melting American cheese on top.
Which brings me to a question I have always had: How can American cheese, the processed slice of dairy and chemicals, actually be called cheese at all? There is no love/hate about that orange square; it falls wholly in the hate category.
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