A more food-like alternative to creepy orange 'cheese' spread

Since Sarah is not appropriately entertaining me on a daily basis with blog entries, I will create my own...

Who doesn't have fond memories of Cheeze Whiz? Ah, that wonderful orange goo that made celery sticks palatable as a child. Unfortunately, I still like to eat celery sticks and apple slices adorned with the horrid substance, an occasional habit that was rekindled after housesitting in a place that had some in the fridge. I finished off the jar and bought a replacement, and ate some of that too. Something about it is just yummy, but I hate to consume a product that likely has few ingredients found in nature and is manufactured by Kraft. Ugh, I genuinely feel shame when I buy it. Not that I eat a lot of the stuff, but probably every couple of years I get a jar and it lives in the fridge and gets slowly consumed.

Imagine my delight then, when I was at a friend's (of Japanese decent) parent's place for dinner, and she was mixing up a vegetable salad dressing of equal parts miso and mayonnaise. Upon tasting the dressing I exclaimed "That tastes like Cheeze Whiz!" which was met with disbelieving stares and that look that one gets when one is perceived as strange, a little pathetic, and hopefully not dangerous.

Skip forward almost a year...

I never did get around to buying myself some miso to try it out. I've had miso before and usually use a few tablespoons and then the rest of it sits in the fridge because it looks okay, but I don't really know how long it keeps so I daren't eat any more of it after the first few weeks. As fortune may have it, the place I am housesitting at now happens to have a tub of aka (red) miso and a big jar of mayonnaise. I mixed a few teaspoons of each and voila, exceptional Cheeze Whiz flavour (actually better than Cheeze Whiz), without the unnatural colour and unpronounceable ingredients. If you wanted to be a real superstar you could use homemade mayonnaise. One caveat - it is perhaps a bit more salty, but the flavour is quite intense so you don't need to glop it on.

So go ahead, try it. A childhood snack craving satisfied by something better tasting than the original and undoubtedly better for you.