Holiday cheeseball

• 1 block of cream cheese
• 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar
• 2 cups shredded Monterrey jack
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/3 cup crumbled bleu cheese
• poppy seeds
• fresh parsley, chopped fine
• chopped green onions
• 4 strips good quality bacon

Cook the bacon over a medium flame until done. Pat the grease out using a paper towel and chop into fine pieces. In a large bowl whip together the 4 cheeses and milk. Once blended, stir in the green onions and half the parsley and bacon. When complete, form mix into two large bowls and refrigerate on a plate for at least 1/2 hour. Combine remaining parsley and bacon with poppy seeds and roll ball in mix to evenly coat.

The dish: One of my favorite things about the Holiday season is watching all the available retail space vanish from our otherwise dying mall. Among the "as seen on TV" stores and people peddling skin moisturizers from the Dead Sea is usually a young lady wearing a Santa hat standing behind a tray of cut up processed meats speared with toothpicks. I'm not one to offend by denying those hardworking Hickory Farms folks their gracious generosity, so I've eaten my fair share of pork butt (and leaner turkey pork butt???). It's difficult for me to get that close to edible treats without making a purchase, and I sampled pretty much all the offerings from the farms of hickory. Among my favorite things were the cheeseballs, covered in nuts and colored a slightly disturbing shade of pink. It was a few years ago that I offered to bring an appetizer to my mom's Thanksgiving dinner. I found a recipe for the cheeseball, but was a little nervous to try making it because I was such a fan of the ones that showed up at the mall. I took a chance and decided to give it a go. I was having one of those mornings where I felt I could do anything and the ball-o-cheese I created cemented my resolve that I would never buy another nutty, pink cheese sphere. The ball in the picture above was hurriedly made during a party where we crammed 45 or so folks into our tiny condo. Of the cheeseballs I've made this one is undoubtedly the ugliest, but still tastes way better the one you'd pick up after dodging the guy selling talking fish plaques.