Trina Machacek: The discovery of softened cream cheese

It is no secret between me and my friends that there are just some things that I will not try when it comes to eating. I have no trouble saying, “no way!” when, say, a deep-fried scorpion weaved on a stick is waved under my nose.

I have been approached with a hermitically sealed bag of chocolate-covered ants that someone shakes in my face telling me they are just soooooooo good. Politely, as I am gagging, I verbally and colorfully declined those treats. Bugs and the like are way out there on the “try it before you die” spectrum for sure.

Then there are some things that most people eat and enjoy that for some reason have passed me by over the course of all my three course days of eating every day for the past blabbity-blabbity years. One of those things for the longest time was sour cream. I mean come on.

Those two words, sour and cream? They just don’t seem like a good mix. Kind of like saying chunky and milk! There was, for a long time a big stop sign planted at the opening of my mouth before I finally gave a teeny dot to try on a baked potato.

I went from “no way,” to “where have you been all my life?” Now I have a goodly supply of that white, smooth, cool delight in every corner of my fridge. But! Yes, a smooth white “but.” I was never a big fan of cream cheese. Until this…

Don’t get me wrong I have had cream cheese. My sister-in-law makes really wonderful surprises with cream cheese. Mixing and adding to create goodness. If you didn’t know there was cream cheese in some of her recipes, you would never know.

I have used cream cheese and made cheesecake because I had no idea what else to do with some that was left in my refrigerator after a get-together. Then I tried a lip-smacking smoky chipotle raspberry concoction dip put out by someone at a party. Holy mackerel Andy! It was held together with one of those blocks of whatever cream cheese is made of and the whole cream cheese world opened up.

One thing was still foreign to me. It was to use this delightful carrier as just plain cream cheese. “Who would eat that,” I said. Not me. It must be all pasty and gooey and flavorless. After all, when you see it on the shelf at the store if it isn’t in the standard box and foil packaged block ready to be mixed with other stuff to make it yummy, it comes already mixed with several different flavorful things to make it palatable.

Except for this little tub of unassuming “softened” cream cheese. Well, I just had to try it. Finally, after all these blabbity-blabbity years. On of all things toasted blueberry bagels. Oh bagels. Yet another thing I didn’t try until I was handed a plain one on a bus tour in New York with a bunch of kids I was chaperoning. I was hungry and as they say, any port in a storm.

We were given a bagel and an orange and that opened up bagels to me long, long ago. Anyway, sliding along this cheesy tale. On a whim with a bag of bagels in my shopping cart I threw in a little tub of this softened stuff. Because I know that I probably do not have the patience or desire to soften a package of the stuff as to not rip and tear at the bread while trying to spread cold stiff cream cheese on a warm toasted bagel that I usually just smother with butter!

Needless to say, that today I bought two more, yes two more, little tubs of that danged stuff as one tub didn’t last through that little six count bag of bagels. I consoled myself and made sense of buying that second tub with the fact that I didn’t buy ANY of the nine, yes nine, different flavored tubs of this tummy expanding, hip growing, smile creating, creamy stuff. Well not yet.

Move over sour cream, soft cream cheese is in the house, uh refrigerator. Not so much for the fried scorpions or chunky milk, however. I do have some standards.

Trina Machacek lives in Eureka. Her books are available wherever you buy books or email her at itybytrina@yahoo.com to buy signed copies.