Cheese and Choux

I never thought I would say this, but: my man has gone off to rehab.  Oh no, no no.

Ha, totally kidding.  I've always wanted to say that.  Sadly however, I've never dated the Sid Vicious God-Save-The-Queen types.  Not me, no.  I've always gravitated towards the fine wine, carefully puckered tie, newspaper under the arm on Sunday mornings types.  They've been well-read; they've had a good sense of humor; they've never done any real time in prison.  Still, there has to be some merit to the bad boy that I've been missing.  If not, I certainly have a bone to pick with a number of girlfriends who kept me up weeping and waiting by the phone in college.  I'm not sure what the merit is, and this is probably why I married the very best of "my type."  Nonetheless, there's a certain dangerous something to wiggling your eyebrows, casually leaning in to offer a secret, and chucking about a lightening-bolt word.  Like rehab.

Unfortunately, I've just never been that interesting.  My fine wine husband isn't in rehab for anything that requires a twelve-step program, but rather to fix the foot that he royally screwed up playing basketball.  The plebians call his rehab "physical therapy," but honestly, what's the fun in that?  So my husband not only popped a handful of ligaments (two days before the bar exam, I might add), but he went above and beyond your ordinary sprain.  He did such a number on that foot that his therapist has proclaimed the look of it (tiger stripe purple bruises on all sides) and the feel of it (disturbingly wobbly) unprecedented.  For a good month, I just winced when I looked at that foot.  Unprecedented or not, I just felt helpless.  Watching him.  Not being able to do anything. 

This is kind of love that never gets shown of TV.  They always give you these oddly oiled bodies straddling each other in great abandon.  Nearly every woman (don't me started) has implants that actually look implanted.  Everything's all hot and bothered.  But very recently, I've decided that the best kind of love is the kind that mops your head during a fever.  That chills with you during a chick flick (however grudgingly).  That doesn't make fun of you (too much) when you spill wine at a work function.  I suppose I have to resign myself to the inarguable fact that I actually love somebody more than myself.  And I've decided that it's the most frustrating freakin' thing in the world.

Because I can't actually do anything to make my gimpy mate better.  Recently, I've exhausted energy elsewhere.  I've cleaned bathrooms.  I've helped him carry heavy stuff upstairs.  You know, we do what we can.  Many people would probably advise me to mellow out, as there's nothing (really) that I can do to help.  To these pessimists, I have only one word: muffins.

That's right, I made him muffins.  I made muffins, because his physical therapy required him up at the crack of dawn.  I made muffins, because he gets tunnel vision sometimes, and I knew he would miss breakfast.  And, of course, I did it because it was the only thing that I could do.  And, if a girl's gotta be helpless, she can at least be helpless with sparkling bathrooms and a yummy smelling kitchen.  Besides, I'm no martyr here; I definitely pilfered some for myself.  I should note that the recipe calls for blueberries, which always seems a bit weak to me.  How many blueberry muffins have you eaten in your life?  There you go, I rest my case.  I should also note that this recipe is super healthy, and in that sense, a little bland.  However, because it's so healthy, the fiber should prove filling enough for a meal substitute.  I should also note that all of my pictures are of the strawberries, because they're just so sublimely pretty this spring.  Forget the look of the muffins.  Just eat them.

And I should also say that, in the end, I ate more muffins than him.  But that's okay, because I made them all for him.  And that - for me - is unprecedented.

Oat Whole Wheat Strawberry and Banana Muffins, pilfered from Bea Ojankangas "Light Muffins . . . "

Instructions

1 1/2 cups uncooked old-fashioned rolled oats

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup fresh or dried blueberries

1 cup skim milk

1/2 cup (1 medium) mashed ripe banana

2 tablespoons Walnut oil

1 large egg, beaten

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Spray a 12 cup muffin tin with olive oil based cooking spray.  In a large bowl, thoroughly mix the rolled oats with the wheat flour, brown sugar, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, and salt.  Add the strawberries, and stir gently until they are evenly distributed.  In a small bowl, stir together the milk, banana, oil, and egg until blended.  Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just moistened, about 20 strokes.  Spoon batter into the muffin cups, dividing evenly.  Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until wooden toothpick comes out clean.

Finally, finally, finally: today feels like spring.  The concrete-style blocks of ice have since melted.  I've awakened to birds chirping.  The farmers' markets, all over town, have begun to dust themselves off.  And even though it's still too cold for the lightweight, bright colors that I want to wear, it's Easter this weekend.  Came a little early this year, though, didn't it?

Anyway, this won't be a long blog today, because - no offense to you and yours - I'd rather be outside.  I have a slight problem with pushing the season.  I become uber-excited at the beginning of the season (any season), and thereupon busy myself with anything that I can do to celebrate its coming.  On Monday of this week, the first Monday in a long stream of Mondays to offer a cloudless sky and pulsating sun, I pushed the season.  I pushed it so hard that I nearly cracked it.  Even though I haven't gone running in some time (due to my general distaste for breathing cold air in the lungs, not a certain exam), I eagerly decided to begin again.  And, as with the beginning of every season, I forgot to pace myself.  I ran too far and too fast.  I ran merrily and contentedly, until I was sufficiently winded.  When I returned home, I was in such a place of unmatched HAPPY that I even forgot to stretch.  Karma then bit me.  Hard.

I did something terrible to my right foot.  My husband, who popped ligaments and headed to the ER an ironic two days before the bar exam, and I have hobbled together in tandem.  He hurt his right ankle too, so our injuries make for a nice symmetry.  Because I was house-bound, I didn't even mind a three-day onslaught of downpours.  I drank chamomile tea and ate soup.  I finally (hopefully) accepted that I must ebb and flow with what the season brings.  This means no flip-flops for a little while.  This means that I have to wear a coat, even when a bright sun and brighter grass would urge otherwise.  This means a steady pace, and a marathon-like approach to enjoying the season.

Even so, this doesn't mean that I can't nudge the season along a bit.  And what could be more symbolic of spring than morels and asparagus?  Aside from that Big Fluffy Bunny that hops around with the dyed eggs, not much.  I found a recipe from the New York Times (an oft-neglected recipe hot spot) that incorporates dried morels into risotto.  (*Dried mushrooms, more than their soft counterparts, can withstand lengthy stirring).  I do realize that I recently made a risotto, but the stirring gets me every time.  On a rainy Wednesday at dusk, stirring my risotto helped me vet out all of the excess noise.  I didn't even play music this time.  It was just me stirring and the rain bleating up against the window.  All quiet.  No matter that I had to stir the thing flamingo-style, with my right foot airborne in a constant, loose arabesque.  On this Friday, with my angry foot having heeled somewhat and the sun having begun to peek through the clouds again, I'm ready to celebrate the season at a more forgiving pace.  No more running for me for at least a week.  It's time to stroll. 

Risotto with Morels, Capicola, and Parmesan, adapted from the NY Times, May 1996

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups Arborio rice, or other short-grain rice

3 1/2 to 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 cup chopped onion

1/3 cup dry white wine

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup capicola

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

4-5 oz. dried morels

Instructions

Put morels in a small bowl; add water and set aside for 30 minutes.  Drain the morels, reserving the liquid.  Mix the liquid with the stock and place in saucepan.  Keep at a low simmer.

Heat butter in heavy saucepan, add onion and garlic and sauté for about 10 minutes.  Stir in rice and cook for a few minutes.  Add wine and morels.  Stir.

Gradually, add the simmering stock - about 1/2 cup each time, stirring constantly.  Add additional stock as each ladleful becomes absorbed into the arice.  Continue to cook for another minute or so.  Add the parmesan cheese and capicola, and let stand for a few minutes.

First and foremost, my sincere apologies for my recent disappearance for a month.  It wasn't so much that I couldn't blog and/or cook much as I studied for the test -- though my delay was certainly due to those things.  No, I regressed into a much deeper, darker chasm.  For at least three weeks, I lived in a place where I only barely washed my hair.  On the days when my husband came home to see my hair in a curly knot on my head, I winced to hear him ask:  "You did bathe today, right?"  Our friends recently brought over their 15-month-old, and she was infinitely more mellow than me.  Most telling of all for your purposes however, our meals often dwindled to my husband's "bachelor" meals.  You know, chicken lovingly drizzled with barbecue sauce.  We ate lasagna for four days.  In the last week, the week of that troublesome test, we frequented every take-out place that we could find.  So, now you're beginning to understand.  It wasn't so much that I wasn't writing.  No, most sadly of all, the past three weeks left me with very little to write about.

So, before I forget anything else, Happy Belated Valentine's Day!  And before you get yourself in a tizzy, I know that it's a holiday that is manufactured for the greeting card industry.  Hallmark makes a killing.  Healthy relationships require an "I love you," or at least its finest equivalent, more than one day a year.  I do know all of this.  Nonetheless, I can't help but enjoy a holiday dedicated to flowers and chocolate.  I actually wish we had more days which trumpet love and kindness, but my friends have often remarked that I'm too idealistic as it is.  For most years (or at least the years that we have approached February a deux), Valentine's Day is important for my husband and I because it causes us to stop.  You know, we take a breath.  We pencil this date on the calendar in ink.  Our meal takes hours; we look forward to it all week.  We stop.  And, before you start, I understand that we should take this time everyday of the week.  But, even as an over-idealistic newlywed, that's never been my reality.

For this year in particular, I used magic marker to encircle V-Day on the calendar.  After weeks of divesting myself of any remnant of femininity and taking solace in my husband's old sweatpants, I can honestly say that I had the greatest anticipation for this evening with my valentine.  And in all of this studying and narrow-minded focus, it reminded me of something very important - yet easily forgotten: there is life beyond a test.  It was even inspiring.  Jalapeno and cheese biscuits.  Parmesan-encrusted Mahi Mahi.  A sturdy tower of asparagus over brown rice.  Chocolate soufflé, and raspberries with cream.  In only two weeks, I could remind myself on this Valentine's Day, I'll be back.

And so, nearly two weeks later, here I am.  It's March now, and it almost feels like spring.  The sun is high; the temperatures are lingering in the 50s (!!!); these piles of snow will soon be a thing of the past.  Even the robins have come back to us.  I believe that they're a bit impatient as well.  And just as I felt a bit rusty during my work-out this morning, I feel like I have to ease back into cooking.  I'll feel sore tomorrow, but we have to start with the basics.  A little olive oil in the pan.  Chopping vegetables briskly on the cutting board.  Kneading some bread.  So I think I'll start, with your permission, back at the beginning.  I'm starting with this recipe, because it's what I've always made at the end of exams.  I don't know when I started making this bread.  However, I know why I began with it again: on a most base level, it's a question of taking back your own time.  During any stressful period, we don't have time for the bread-making.  These rudimentary elements (the kneading, the hours ticked off, the scents wafting through a quiet home) simply feel like wasted time.  So, now that my time is my own again, I'll begin at my beginning.  This bread won't turn you off, because there's no yeast involved.  This bread won't be too mysterious for you, because it's only uniqueness is the browning of that one elemental ingredient.  So, give it a shot.  It's spring, and we might as well all begin again.

Brown Butter Soda Bread, pilfered from Bon Appetit, February 2006

Ingredients

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (*I use whole wheat; it tastes better)

1/2 cup old-fashioned oats

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 3/4 cups buttermilk

1 egg white, beaten to blend

Instructions

Position rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees.  Stir butter in heavy small saucepan over medium heat until melted and golden brown, about 3 minutes.  Remove from heat. 

Stir flour, oats, sugar, rosemary, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 3/4 teaspoon pepper in large bowl to blend.  Pour buttermilk and melted browned butter over flour mixture; stir with a fork until flour mixture is moistened.

Turn dough out onto floured work surface.  Knead gently until dough comes together, about 7 turns.  Divide in half.  Shape each half into a ball; flatten each into 6-inch round.  Place rounds on ungreased baking sheet, spacing 5 inches apart.  Brush tops with beaten egg white.  Sprinkle lightly with ground black pepper.  Using a small knife, cut 1/2 inch deep X in top of each dough round.

Bake breads until deep golden brown and tester comes out clean, about 45 minutes.  Cool breads on rack at least 30 minutes.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Throughout the South, or at least the southern states with which I am acquainted, pale pink t-shirts trumpet one phrase: GRITS.  Even I, at first, thought they were referencing the gruel that has become custom.  But no, it stands simply and proudly and raucously for: girls raised in the south.  I'm not one of those girls, but I always wanted to be one of them.  Instead, I was raised in a mid-atlantic state.  Don't get me wrong - the middle has its advantages.  It's neither hot, nor cold.  Neither winter or summer is longer than truly necessary.  Moreover, its history is decidedly diplomatic - a less pretentious version of Switzerland.  Without the banking, and the good fortune that flows from banking.

The bottom line is that a mid-atlantic upbringing is a mild one.  That's all well and good, except for the glaring bit: I'm not a mild one.  On good days, I'm passionate and fervent; on bad days, I'm hot-tempered and impulsive.  So, setting aside my unabiding loyalty for the Chesapeake Bay for a moment, I was raised in this place where I didn't quite fit.  I might have even wandered away - as I'm also prone to nomadic wandering - for good.

It was the weight of my history that anchored me home.  For all of my family's recent nostalgia for the mid-atlantic, our roots are gnarled deep in southern soil.  And, before you ask, we were absolutely on the wrong side of that war that this country can't seem to shake.  I'm certainly not nostalgic for any of that.  As far as I'm concerned, we were on the wrong side, then.  My nostalgia - my roots - just runs deeper than any of that.  I'll love its surface, its soil, first.  I love its magnolia trees and the shade they give.  I love she-crab soup in Charleston, followed by a walk along the Battery where the lucky ones catch sight of dolphins.  I love the river boats ambling up the Savannah River; I would argue that they still belong.  They make their place in a world that would just as soon forget them.  I love the Piedmont area of Virginia, and the drawl dripping off lips in North Carolina.  I love the sense of belonging that I have when I am there.  And before you write this all off as hospitality, I'll argue that my roots run deeper than a pineapple carved into the molding of an elderly gentleman's front hall. 

Most of all, I love that the south would likely welcome me home.  Indeed, I believe that the south would even deign to remember me.  History is never so far away down there, as it dribbles by with the coating of molasses.  The south is reminiscent of Europe to me, in that centuries seem to be required to fully comprehend.  Time takes time, they seem to understand.  They seem to understand that we must wait to figure out what it all means.  In the meantime, these generations we have never met will linger close.  In the meantime, I hope to live in place like that.  I hope to live in a place where a long walk, presumably under a long line of trees made even more lush with Spanish Moss, requires a steady gait. 

I have said before that I cook for those I love, and that I cook for the memories that it brings me.  In the end, however, my cooking runs deeper too.  I also cook for the life that I want.  So, for as long as I am tethered to our home and studying, I want our home to be bursting with spices when my husband walks through the door.  I want our bodies and minds, our spirits and hearts, all strong.  So, I'll infuse the meals with fruits and fresh vegetables and broth and spice.  In this way, I'll lighten our load.  I'll be certain to keep my chocolate drawer (yes, I have a drawer) full.  I also cook for the life that I live in tandem with my own.  If you're not a traveler at heart, such a notion might not make sense.  I can only explain it with for instance.  For instance, I've been itching to head to India lately (and I've never been); I'll make a curry sometime soon.  I once made a cassoulet for Jordan, before we were married, when I was particularly craving a date (and France).  I cook as a reminder that life is bigger than my own.  Tonight, at least, I cooked for my roots. 

Today, the hours have drifted by gently.  The snow outside was a constant cotton shower; the sky gleamed so white, illuminated entirely from within.  On days like this, afternoon could only be marked by a clock.  The hours were all indecipherable until dusk.  So I cooked a chili, for my mother, because it's her easy standby when there is no leaving the home.  I called her in the instant that the cumin and brown sugar and chili pepper all intermingled.  For my deeper roots, for of all those names scrawled carefully into our large family bible, I made a simple cornbread. 

I've often found that some of my most outspoken friends - friends apt to criticize the south - take aim at its food first.  They call it fattening and rich; they're easily dismissive.  I would disagree, however.  And I'm not disagreeing simply because they've never enjoyed fresh shrimp off the boats of South Carolina.  In this melting pot/utterly diverse/wonderfully colorful culture that we inhabit, it's hard to get your footing into a culinary tradition.  I borrow from all of the other cultures, of course, but the south has offered me a foothold.  Admittedly, some of their dishes are heavy and outdated.  Even as we walk slowly, I would contend that it's important - for the adventurous soul - to keep our eyes on the horizon line.  We must experiment with our traditions, and infuse them with a sensory experience to mirror our changing lives.  At the end of the day, even a cold day in the harshest wind and lightest snow of January, it's not even about the food in the end.  It's the warmth enveloping you, as the wind pounds your windows to point of shattering.  It's the family sharing your meals.  It's the roots.  Maybe, at the end of the day, it's always been about the roots under foot.

Corn Bread with Green Onions and Parmesan Cheese, adapted from Bon Appetit October 2003

Ingredients

Nonstick cooking spray

6 Tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 3/4 cups chopped green onions

2 cups yellow cornmeal

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1/3 cup sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon coarsely grated black pepper

1 1/2 cups 1 percent or skim milk

2 large eggs

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Spray 13X9X2 inch pan with nonstick spray.  Melt butter with oil in heavy medium skillet over medium heat.  Add green onions; saute 3 minutes.  Cool.

Whisk cornmeal, flour, cheese, sugar, baking powder, salt and pepper in large bowl to blend.  Whisk milk and eggs in medium bowl to blend.  Add milk mixture and green onion mixture to dry ingredients; stir until just blended.  Transfer batter to pan.

Bake bread until tester inserted in center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.  (Can be prepared 1 day ahead.  Cool.  Cover with foil and store at room temperature.  Rewarm uncovered in 350 degree oven for 10 minutes).  Serve warm.

There is no one constant that permeates my childhood quite like the beach.  Even during my parents "lean years," we were fortunate enough to enjoy my grandmother's beach house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  It was there that, almost three months old in the dead of January, I learned the meaning of wind.  I'm told that, perceptive baby that I was, I squirmed and sort of spat at it.  It was there that I learned - quite literally - to swim against the tide, or else by swept out to sea.  I'll grudgingly acknowledge that the metaphor remains poignant today.  To this day, no breakfast is as soul-fulfilling, as awe-inspiring as soggy cereal enjoyed languorously overlooking the bay's boat traffic.  When I'm driving there (crossing the endless Bay Bridge, waiting for the land to flatten to packed sand, riding its slow drift to dunes), I still open my windows to give the salt air a chance to wiggle its way into my car.  I miss it on days like this most of all.  On January days like this, the sky only offers shades of an opaque gray.  The snow drifts pile high on the ground.  Where there is no snow, there can only be sludge and a sort of damp earth.  And on top of this giant hill where Jordan and I make our home, the wind takes on an other-worldly might.  While studying, I have wondered if it's really wind or a steam-powered locomotive chugging towards our place.  Most of all, take a whiff of this January.  It smells too crisp, too clean, and all cold.  On days like this, I miss my beach most of all.

I had a feeling that this inevitable mid-winter pining was coming my way.  Accordingly, on New Year's Eve, I brought a little beach home with me.  We stayed in for New Year's.  I have a friend in New York (with sparkly clothes, luxury stilettos, miniscule miniskirts) who would gasp in horror if she knew that we had stayed in.  However, I'm to the point where I'm ready to roll my eyes and just call it growing up.  After a Christmas #1 and #2 that warranted tremendous mileage on Jordan's car, I think we were both ready for a holiday that felt like a holiday.  A respite.  A break.  Something involving red wine, warm blankets, and just us two.  Alone.  However, I'm still a girl who (before law school took its brutal toll on my personal aesthetic) likes her luxury stilettos.  So I decided, for festivity's sake and because cooking a three-course meal didn't feel like the respite that I was seeking, to have appetizers for dinner.  Like having breakfast for dinner, I couldn't help but ask myself the obvious: why on God's green earth don't we do this more often?  There were veggies to be dipped; there was a cheese plate with crackers; there was a box of truffles waiting to be ripped open.  Still, we needed something else.  Something ceremonial.  Nothing big - just big enough to let my husband know that he's still my favorite New Year's date.  In other words, I needed some beach.  Our piece de la resistance, my friends, was our crab dip.

I know what you're thinking.  You're yawning and thinking that maybe those lame chain restaurants have crab dip, too.  Anyone for Applebee's?  TGI Fridays?  Yeah, I understand what you're getting at.  Accordingly, I think I need to take the time to clarify my love affair with crab.  To me, it isn't simply a crustacean that holds spices well.  No, rather, its briny notes bring back all of my favorite memories.  Jordan sometimes accuses me of exaggerating - perish the thought.  But this is all me, and all true.  Without crabs and oysters and mussels and Old Bay, my life would be wrenched into a disarming cacophony.  After all, a person can best be measured by his or her character, integrity, moral compass, life experience, taste in wine and chocolate, and the last meal.  That's right: what would your last meal be before you died?  I'm still working on mine, but I know that I would at least start with Maryland Crab Soup.

I'm not sure that Jordan originally gave my family's Eastern shore culinary obsession the respect that it deserved.  He seemed a little unnerved when my father intoned (half-joking, I think) that Jordan must crack crabs with the family before we were to get married.  Fortunately, my husband was game.  I should say here that, while I adore the fruits of my labor, I always romanticize the notion of cracking crabs.  I think of wielding the mallet, the corn on the cob, the fried chicken, the sheer unapologetic messiness of the whole affair, the pitchers of beer, the family, and I want to be there.  Now.  When I'm actually there, the feeling is reminiscent of when I've seen ex-boyfriends after they've become ex-boyfriends.  Sort of a kick-in-the-gut, hell yes, THIS is why we don't talk anymore.  Cracking crabs is not for the hungry, hence the side dishes of fried chicken and corn.  Cracking crabs is for the masochist infant who likes to play with his food, rather than actually eating it.  However, I do get all nostalgic for it and was genuinely excited for Jordan to join us. 

Jordan performed admirably.  I must have beamed like a proud mother.  In short, Jordan acted exactly like one of the family: he didn't say anything; he took his mallet to crunch the crab; he came up for air only for long sips of dark ale.  He took to the silence like a cat to milk.  Yes, I did say silence.  The men in my family generally find speaking unnecessary in this environment, and focus on the crab with a piercing intensity that is normally only reserved for - well - sports.  It was very Old Man in the Sea.  Hemingway, in all his sweaty machismo, would have been proud too.  When the paper tablecloth was torn away and our hands were washed, Jordan fell into a satisfied smile.  We were already engaged, but that might have been the point that they let me marry him.  That might have been the point when he became family.  My family.

Still, that was the summer.  Moreover, we don't exactly live on the coast anymore.  The question for me has always been: how do I keep my beach with me for the rest of the time?  The answer comes in a nondescript yellow container: Old Bay Seasoning.  This will always, until the day I die (there's that flair for drama that my husband loves), be my favorite spice.  I'm not as enthusiastic for it as my brother; Tim generously douses his scrambled eggs with the stuff.  However, for all you non-Maryland people, this salty goodness renders an anonymous crab, a Maryland crab.  And because I take my crab dip seriously, I would urge you to sprinkle yours with this novel spice.  That is, if you take your crab dip seriously too.  I give this recipe to you on a Monday, because it's mid-January.  If you live anywhere other than maybe Miami, Mondays generally pucker the lips like a bad taste in the mouth.  So, I say, don't wait until the weekend.  Enjoy a night of appetizers.  Uncork a bottle of wine.  For your grand finish, have a chocolate truffle.  It's the wettest stretch of January people, and we could all use a little more beach.

Eastern Shore Crab Dip

Ingredients

Old Bay - copious amounts

1 (6 oz.) can of real crab meat, drained and flared.  *You use the imitation stuff, and I'll be able to feel it.

1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese

1 cup Miracle Whip

Green onions (at least 3)

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1/2 celery stalk, chopped

*If you like it more tart, you can add non-fat plain yogurt.  It's better for you than sour cream, and you won't be able to tell the difference.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Lightly grease a baking dish.

Mix all ingredients together.  Chop with cheeses and Tim-style sprinklings of Old Bay.

Bake in oven for 30 minutes.