The Beginning - Chance and Chutney Cheese Spread

Welcome to the first ever episode of Mom's Wooden Spoon we are your giddy hosts I'm Kristen and I'm Carrie and you are never going to believe the coincidences that led us to this podcast today in this episode we'll explain how a food splattered three-ring binder a small town grocery store and a 95 year old home economist brought us here to you with a dish of Chutney Frosted Cheese Spread welcome to Mom's Wooden Spoon get your apron on and your fanny flicker ready as we cook up some nostalgia. Ooh yummy!

hey there, this is Kristen and this is Carrie and we are the sisters who hatched this crazy plan to cook while we chat about our childhood nostalgia and cool facts about food and life in general okay so this show is going to be a little bit different than the rest of them because we need to catch you up to speed before we start throwing some Chutney Frosted Cheese Spread at you that's true so here's the story I was cleaning our mom's kitchen when I found this dusty old three ring binder stuffed way at the back of a cupboard the minute I saw the name written on the spine in our mom's perfect cursive I was shot back in time to our childhood in the 70s and 80s now being the great sister that I am I instantly called you and I was in the middle of a 10 hour drive and totally appreciated the distraction. I remember you calling and asking me if I remembered Mary's Memos and I'm pretty sure I screamed OMG those recipe flyers from the grocery store that mom brought home when we were kids and they were on copied paper and pink and blue and this yucky yellow and of course I screamed yes and I told you that they contained more than just recipes Carrie that we had hit nostalgic gold it was packed with food trends local events like the crowning of the local pork queen and the best diet ideas the 70s had to offer so I sat down right there on the kitchen floor and just started reading the amazing contents to you some of the recipes that we remembered mom cooking were super easy to find because they were dog-eared underlined starred and completely food splattered we were smiling laughing and remembering the past it was awesome it was that phone call that launched the idea for us to do this podcast we just had had so much fun that we wanted to share that joy with others and the crazy part about this is that after we came up with this idea it was like the universe kept telling us to just keep moving forward with it the highlight of this happened on our last trip home mom and I ran to Chief Supermarket to pick up some items for dinner and as we were leaving there on a little stand just like when we were kids was a Mary's Memo seriously I couldn't quite figure out what was going on I thought Mary had stopped doing those memos decades ago turns out she had but she decided to do one more memo titled The Final Memo and it came out the week we happened to be in town total Kismet right so what better place for us to begin than at the end yep so we chose our first recipe to make from that final Mary's Memo we specifically chose the Chutney Frosted Cheese Spread because Mary said that while she always wrote about food she liked not everyone always agreed and this recipe was one of them we figured that throughout this podcast we may be choosing some recipes that suited our taste as kids in the 1970s but have not necessarily stood the test of time so true and everybody has a different opinion about what tastes good and what is gross like peas and because of that we expect to have some winners and totally some clunkers but no matter what we expect to have fun making them so with that let's get started on Mary's Final Memo so the ingredients for Chutney Frosted Cheese Spread are cheeses which would be cheddar cheese cream cheese a couple spices garlic curry some scallions mayonnaise mmm mayo it's not a 70s recipe without mayo amen yeah and chutney go figure more specifically it is Major Grey's chutney which I was able to find locally much to my surprise and even more to my surprise there's a recipe on the back of Major Grey's Chutney yeah that is darn near identical to the one that we are making today oh my gosh really very interesting so Mary indicates that this recipe is adapted from someone else's recipe Marlene Sorosky yes and her Year-Round Holiday Cookbook yes from 1982 so I misspoke when I said mayo is always part of a 70s recipe I think it was pretty big in the 80s too I'm thinking mayo in Northwest Ohio is just a winner all the time well so as I looked at the recipe at the back of Major Grey's Chutney there is one very big difference this one has scallions theirs has cilantro so I'm assuming that the one on the back of the container is the more recent recipe because cilantro is definitely a newer thing that people necessarily weren't using back in the 80s absolutely and I'm glad it's not cilantro because you hate the cilantro I am one of those people that cilantro tastes like ah they say soap but it's much more like dirt to me it's not an appealing taste at all right so you know how Carrie said that you know we would make foods and we might not like them and peas was one of them cilantro is her other yes it is a nemesis so I'm I can eat scallions I'm happy with that good so the first thing that we need to do is mix the cheese the spices and the scallions and the mayonnaise together so basically we're mixing it all together except the chutney okay did you say the scallions get mixed in there too yes and we're going to leave a quarter cup out apparently as a garnish okay cool yeah so we can start doing that and so as we get ready my first thought was I do not know what a chutney is I don't know chutney versus jam versus jelly looks very much like a jelly to me and so I looked it up and apparently it is they're all very very similar it depends on the fruits and the other things that are in it chutneys always have vinegar in them I didn't know that so there's a bit of a tang it stems from India and it's a very popular addition to Indian dishes as a matter of fact according to what I read many Indian dishes just don't feel or seem to be complete without the addition of a chutney and they're made from all different kinds of fruits mango being one of the most popular nice yeah so I thought that was kind of interesting so yeah if you're cooking an Indian dish and it doesn't have a chutney you should probably get one and get Major Grey's and maybe Major Grey's apparently well I'm going to start chopping up these scallions and you know I always wonder ooh that sounded loud that was a brand new jar of garlic powder it is I popped open the top there that was pretty exciting oh that's funny you know every time I see a recipe and it's calls for scallions or green onions I'm like gosh I wonder if there's a difference they look the same right and so I looked that up because I was interested sure and basically scallions are a little milder in flavor but it kind of depends on the grocery store as to how they're labeled green onions could be labeled scallions, scallions could be labeled green onions interesting yes so you really just don't know no and you can just basically do them interchangeably well I'm chopping these onions and while I do I have to tell you when we looked at this recipe and I saw Chutney Frosted Cheese Spread yeah it made me just keep thinking of Frosted Flakes Frosted Flakes cereal which is weird right which then brought back this memory of this one time of course in 70s early 80s they had all those contests on the back of cereal boxes yes right and you can just write away to to enter them and I got really big into that for a while never won anything never won anything I sent away to Frosted Flakes to win something didn't even remember I don't think I even looked at what I'd win I just sent them out no because what you win is not important no no it's important right right and um I won yeah guess what they sent me what all kinds of sports equipment I am the most non-sporty person in the universe and I received a wiffle ball a softball a basketball wow yeah I bet I enjoyed playing with them I bet you did and let's uh tell everyone about my softball story oh this is so pathetic this is how horrifically bad I am at sports oh man yeah so I got on a softball team and my dad realized that I did not know how to catch at all so he got me a mitt and he took me out to teach me how to play catch and Kristen was like well I want to learn how to play catch well yeah I wanted to be included of course and so he would hit the ball or throw it way up in the air and we'd call mine and run up and get it and then we were doing really great so we got Mom to come out so we could show off our new found skills I think you're talking about your newfound skills do I do I keep going uh I'll go ahead and tell it so I think it was probably the minute mom walked out there I was like Mom look look I can catch this ball and Dad threw at me and I did not catch it it landed smack in the middle of my rib cage [ __ ] oh I mean it's like you know when someone hits a bass drum and you can feel the sound reverberate for your body I swear I could feel the thunk I hated Frosted Flakes after that I'm just kidding

You know what else I remember you winning oh what and I I don't really remember what it is I just remember the pictures because I mean I the bowl cut I know that you got a t-shirt and I know the T-shirt said Numero Uno Numero Uno Dad, Dad that's for my dad one of the local Mexican restaurants had a contest you had to write why your dad was the best and I wrote in why my dad was the best and I won and we won a free meal nice and I won a t-shirt that was too small and so my chubby little preteen oh stop I remember you sitting in the garden yes with your Numero Uno finger up smiling with your little bowl cut I can find that horrific picture we'll put it on the website oh youf big 80s glass oh my gosh it is it is embarrassing it is so bad but I was so proud as you should be I mean that's impressive you wrote something yes I was probably the only kid who entered that contest these are Minor Details they don't matter Numer Uno Dad

oh my gosh I don't remember the dad but I do remember the Numero Uno t-shirt that is funny we'll have to see if the T-shirt said Numero Uno Dad all right but heck yeah I had my finger up oh Numero Uno that is awesome so when you are a big winner man sports equipment and a two small T-shirt who else wouldn't want that now I'm chopping these green onions how far do you go into the green because this is a lot of green onion slash scallion it really is I don't know you know as I'm putting in the chili powder so one of the things that we have noticed you mean Curry I did not put in chili powder I put in curry powder and one of the things I noticed as we've been looking through Mary's Memo's recipes just in general is I I think it might be a statement of the times but there are very few uh spices in the recipes by and large a little salt a little pepper sometimes you'll see a dash of this or that yeah but by and large that's it you don't see a lot of spices happening so as I'm putting in two teaspoons worth of curry powder into this I'm thinking wow I mean this is pretty remarkable this is a spicy dish no wonder somebody tried this and asked Mary who would have done this right who had thought of this because this is this is pretty spicy that's a lot of flavor it really does a lot of green onion I can smell them here you know sometimes recipes nowadays specifically tell you whether you need to use the whites of the green onion or the greens of the green onion and I'm not quite sure the difference between the two so I'm setting aside the quarter cup of the green onions and I just put the green Parts aside because that'll be the prettiest yes I'm sure and then the rest of these go in yes ma'am let's just put half and mix it up and see how that looks such a chicken now this recipe says that you can use a food processor right to mix this up but our mom certainly would not have had a food processor in the 80s she doesn't have a food processor now no so I think it's uh we decided to go old school in our lovely burnt Orange Bowl with the wheat chaff on the outside perfect you may hear some grunting and groaning as our arm starts to burn uh from the we may take turns um stirring this up now we did put out the cream cheese on the counter to kind of soften up the recipe didn't say to do that but I know from experience trying to mix anything in with a fresh block of cream cheese out of the fridge is hard it is painful yeah absolutely okay so I think that we have all of our ingredients in and so we're going to go ahead and get to mixing Kristen you going first I'm gonna go for first here the arm muscles working we may need something other than a spatula it's kind of bendy well we'll try it wooden spoon maybe always Carrie always all right I'm grabbing a wooden spoon I think it'll actually work better okay so as we are mixing all these cheeses and other things together it reminds me of my childhood not mine no uh um and cheese balls ooh cheese balls do you remember the cheese balls with the I don't know what kind of unknown orange cheese on the inside like Planters that used to come in a can no no no no like the actual cheese ball that was cheese on the inside and nuts on the outside oh yes our mom made those often yes and what I remember is it must have been like she'd have company over on Saturday night and we'd have a cheese ball and of course they didn't eat it all and so at the end of the night I remember her reforming the half-eaten cheese ball into a smaller ball and putting on more nuts so that we could take a cheese ball to the church potluck the following day no totally oh that's kind of creepy Talk about waste not want not absolutely well a good homemaker it kind of grossed me out at the time and I remember saying something to her actually and she was kind of you know frustrated with me and she's like well they used a knife to scoop it out well that's true it's not like they were taking bites directly out of it right but it's still it oh yeah reforming the cheese balls however so you kind of stole my thunder when you went with the Planters cheese balls oh I'm sorry no that's okay because as I got thinking about the the cheese ball with the nuts on the ends outside yeah it made me think of the Planters cheese balls you know because they had like a hint of danger you'd open that can top and you'd have to reach your hand and you may or may not cut your arm that's true as you went to and what I really remember is Sundays after church we would stop by the grocery store to get food for lunch coming home and having lunch of whatever that always seemed to include Planters cheese balls and Twinkies Twinkies I was going to say Twinkies that was such a special treat oh it was just the best Sundays the cheese balls and the Twinkie thank you yes and you never had the cheese ball can for the next week because I mean that sucker was gone by the end of Sunday lunch do you remember the one time that instead of Twinkies we got Little Debbie Banana Twins no oh man those were not my favorites no I think I may have gotten sick and you know just after I'd eaten Banana Twins and so that totally put me off oh of course yeah no I don't think I ever I don't have any recollection of Banana Twins but I feel horror for you thank you because the artificial banana flavor now some people may absolutely love them and I may have loved them but when you get sick after eating anything you just can't eat it again did you know this is just off the cuff knowledge that I happen to pick up some random place at some point in time that artificial banana flavor you know it tastes very artificial right yeah um it actually is based on a type of banana that is no longer no longer grows yes at the time that the artificial banana flavoring was made it was the popular banana I have no idea why it no longer grows I do oh what I know I I think I know this random info but the bananas that we eat today are not the same variety that our parents ate right right um those were much smaller and they tasted different and I'm not quite sure if they were sweeter or not as sweet but I think something happened to that banana crop and that particular variety just basically became extinct wow yeah so banana flavoring tastes fake because it does not taste like the bananas of today interesting it tastes like bananas of the day yeah that that was made yeah I thought that was really interesting that is so interesting so now look at this I've mixed it pretty well I don't think you have to help look at my big biceps doing that look at you miss non-sporty mix that up real good you may not be able to catch a softball but you can mix up cheese right good I sure can proud of you now I did not add about an eighth of the um green onion and I don't I can't imagine putting more in can you no that's very green oniony and it smells very strong it does so what's our next step with this um yeah so you take that cheese spread you take a um like bowl that you want to serve it in okay I have a shallow bowl here and you slap it in there all right and then you spread it around and then we're gonna refrigerate it so it gets kind of hard and then after all that's done we're gonna pour the Major Grey's Chutney over the top of it so when you take your cracker or other dippable item you're gonna get some chutney and then the cheese so really what I was thinking I don't know if you've ever served this where you just take a block of cream cheese oh yeah and then you pour like pepper jelly on the top of it yeah that's yum it is super a simple and delicious well this is a fancier version of that oh yeah in my opinion I bet it's going to be delicious I think it's going to be quite tasty absolutely so we're going to spread you want to spread that out a little bit sure my arm's getting tired I am not gonna agree with the guy that tasted it and asked what on Earth have you created here no I think it's going to be really yummy it smells delicious it does I'm of the opinion you really just it's hard to use too much curry so I like to make chicken salad with curry in it oh I love that do you put fruit like grapes and apple I always do grapes and almond slivers ooh yum oh it's my absolute favorite so I was making some and I had a cold and so I kept adding curry and tasting it and adding curry tasting it and I couldn't taste the curry but the chicken salad at this point is kind of yellow and I'm like man what is going on here so I'm like I call my husband over and I'm like can you taste this because I can't taste any curry in it at all and so he takes the bite and he's like um yeah you can taste it so I had to eat it real fast before I got rid of the cold because it tasted like burning it was way too inedible for normal people but with my nose it tasted just fine and I thought it was fantastic oh my gosh this makes me think of do you remember our dad's curry toast sorry I totally forgot about that so our Dad loved to have a snack of uh cinnamon toast yes right which is funny because Carrie always wanted to have toast as a snack but as a kid she never remembered to tell our mom that that is what she would really enjoy as an after school snack she just thought it in her head and so Mom had no idea so Carrie never had toast as a snack nope very disappointing toast is a really great snack well our dad obviously thought so right so he got out I don't think he even took the time to mix the cinnamon with the sugar I think he's buttered the toast sprinkled a little sugar and then sprinkled a little cinnamon oh that would make sense yeah yeah so one time he accidentally grabbed the curry powder instead of the cinnamon no so he sprinkled on the sugar he sprinkled on curry powder I mean he made two slices he was through the second slice when he realized something wasn't quite right and he called our mom over and said something wrong with this cinnamon and she tasted it and she said that's curry powder curry toast I think maybe that's why he doesn't like the flavor of curry he had it all in one sitting yeah I don't know I think it's kind of a man thing didn't you have a guy friend that made some like frozen chicken wings and you're like oh I'd always thought about buying these how are they and he's like oh they taste like crap but I eat em

maybe it is a man thing I don't know I don't like it it tastes horrible it's disgusting but I ate it all right so we are going to put this in the fridge let it sit for a while let the flavors kind of marinade together and we'll be back in a well in 24 hours to let you know how it went or just a second yeah 

did you have a good night's sleep I did oh awesome you have to take melatonin or are you okay I'm at the age that sleep is questionable I know um but last night was a good night so thanks for asking how about you yep pretty good night sleep I mean how could I not sleep well I could not wait to get to bed to get up and finish our cheese spread recipe well that helps to have something to look forward to absolutely all right so Carries putting on the chutney as I'm doing that in addition to the raisins there are chunks of mango yeah this looks yummy and chunky anyway as we are as you are doing that um I wanted to tell you that a memory came up as I was looking at the date of this recipe okay the original recipe and that Mary talks about and what what is that day it's 1982 so I would have been 12 depending on the time of year and you would have been nine right and so that is the year that Michael Jackson's album Thriller came out yes and I remember listening to that for the first time in your friend Jimmy's basement really it was so cool but it was scary to me because of Vincent Price oh for sure oh he sounded so creepy and it was so cool yes do you remember that album at all did you listen to it you were nine yeah I'm trying to think I don't remember that moment at all you must not have been there why on Earth I was in Jimmy's basement well why were you hanging with my friends because you would have been nine he was your age that's just weird that's pretty crazy yeah yeah but on that album there were other songs that you know I'm sure uh The Girl is Mine oh yeah the girl is mine the doggone girl is mine do you remember who sang that with him no not at all Paul McCartney

Beat It was on there oh that's a good one I love that Billie Jean um PYT do you remember that PYT pretty young thing I don't know anymore me neither um want to be starting something got to be starting something oh my gosh he had tons of hits all of them were amazing and so listening to that thinking back about Vincent Price made me think of a TV show that we both watched in the 70s that also had Vincent Price in a very campy role do you know what TV show I'm talking about no uh The Brady Bunch what Vincent Price was on the Brady Bunch yes he was in the episode or three episodes where the Bradys went to Hawaii do you remember that I do I I have vague memories but if I recall correctly there was like a I don't know like a Tiki Idol yep yep there was a Tiki Idol that Bobby found sound and it brought everybody bad luck yes I remember that Greg Brady was in a surfing contest because why not some rando guy goes to Hawaii and of course he's allowed into the surfing contest well because he's the coolest cat around Greg Brady or Johnny Bravo as he was later known as the height of coolness absolutely and so he wore the Tiki Idol that Bobby gave him and then he fell off the surfboard and knocked his noggin on the surfboard and they couldn't find him oh my gosh scary Alice threw her back out when she was wearing the Tiki Idol I can feel that pain Alice that's hard not only did you have to be a live-in maid for these folks then you throw your back out ouch it's funny that you mentioned the Brady Bunch because I always thought on Mary's Memos the original ones like back in the 70s yeah Mary I thought looked just like Carol Brady oh that's so funny I thought she was like as a kid I didn't realize it was someone else I thought she was Carol Brady funny because probably Carol Brady was your idea of a homemaker probably because I don't think Mary looks a thing like Carol Brady probably but I was a kid um so we've got the chutney on I think we need to sprinkle do you want to sprinkle on the green onion yes I'm gonna that is oh that's too much man a quarter cup is a lot okay so I'm gonna use a quarter of a quarter cup yeah I think that's a good idea because so we have really cut the green onion yeah maybe green onions were smaller you know in the 70s you got very big ones you bought two very large bunches why thank you

that's so inappropriate

okay you're so complimentary Kristen moving on from your big ones um yeah that those were two big bunches of uh of scallions they were they were and you know even like I don't know chicken breasts now yeah they're huge I do not think people were eating chicken breasts that big back in the day no so I think as we progress through cooking Mary's Memos we're gonna have a lot of instances of this I think I think things have changed I think you know we won't be able to find everything that we're looking for I think that if we end up cooking anything in a microwave that the timing is going to be different oh yeah so it'll be fun to just see how things go it is it's part of the fun of it is we're just kind of along for the ride absolutely so let's get a picture of this dish because it's looking mighty yummy it really is yeah so I think we'll get a picture and we'll get some crackers out so we can try this bad boy yeah let's let's do it and get to the taste test 

Okay we are ready to try this delicious dip we have crackers ready we have the knife ready which happens to be the knives that we grew up with yes these the silverware when we were kids it has the beautiful brown inlay in the handle um we don't know what it's not wood it's just brown all right so I'm going to take a sample and I'm eating gluten-free so my crackers are going to be uber crunchy I apologize I'll try not to crunch in your ears but let's give this a try so I am amazed at the quantity of spread this has made like it's a large container of spread and so I'm going to quickly revert back to my cheese ball comment and I found that the first cheese ball was invented by a guy in Massachusetts and he presented it to President Jefferson in the White House oh really in 1801 and that puppy weighed 1

235 pounds think about the cows that had to be milked to make that cheese ball think about the poor horse that had to draw the carriage no kidding holding that cheese ball now if that cheese ball was as yummy as this one is then people would be happy Jefferson would have been very happy I'm enjoying this very much I'm going to try one more and while I try it I'll put some on a cracker for you too oh aren't you thoughtful the sweet with the curry that's what I love about when we make that I make curry chicken salad as well and I love to put grapes in mine I love that little sweetness with the curry did you want to give it a try first before I take a second bite so it is just glistening you can taste the curry you can taste the garlic it has those yummy savory undertones lots and lots of scallion in it lots of oniony flavor I think probably the longer it sits in the fridge the more mellow it would become what do you think I think that is delicious I would serve this happily at any party oh yeah it is a really as good as the block of cream cheese with the pepper jelly but so elevated and nice absolutely and it would taste good with cilantro not to you but it would taste good with cilantro to me just that freshness of the green vegetable in there herb in there is just so nice oh that's fantastic now take your chances if you do not find Major Grey's Chutney we cannot guarantee it'll be equally as delicious but Major Grey clearly makes a mean chutney and it is good on this cheese spread I do not agree with the man that asked Mary what the heck she was thinking about this no I think it was great yep and it is a dish where the mayonnaise is in there to blend the things together but it doesn't come across as mayonnaisey tasting at all not at all nice and cheesy and flavorful and very very flavorful yeah fantastic well that's it for this episode everybody thank you so much for joining us if you do want to see pictures of either the binder that started this or copies of the original Mary's Memos you can find them on our website you'll also be able to find an accompanying blog for each podcast that we do where there's some additional information and hopefully a couple laughs if you like what you heard please share this podcast with a friend and be sure to give us some positive feedback if if you didn't have fun with us keep it to yourself or we may have to grab the wooden spoon

thanks for listening to Mom's wooden spoon if you like what you heard don't forget to subscribe if you want a copy of this recipe or to check out our blog click on the link to our website in the podcast description if you'd rather you could get to our website through Facebook Twitter or Instagram pick your poison don't see poison we're making food