Kosher for Passover Cream Cheese Addiction

I must confess. I am hoarding cream cheese. It’s an addiction. I’m sure there is a 12 step meeting somewhere for people like me. And it’s not just any cream cheese. I am hording Breakstone’s Temp Tee Whipped Kosher for Passover Cream Cheese. It shows up in your local grocery store before Passover. 

For about 5 minutes. 

I grew up sneaking spoonfuls of it into my mouth and most specifically during Passover. When it comes to Passover, my sister and I talk about cream cheese more than we do about matzah. Like somehow the commandment to eat matzah has a Rashi (commentary), "must be smeared with cream cheese."

It’s like this….

“I still need to get my cream cheese.”

“What? You didn’t get it yet? You better hurry.”

“Where did you get yours?”

“Kroger, but they were almost out.”

and Then

“They’re out.”

"What? They had 50 on the shelf yesterday. I only took eight of them."

“Eight?”

“Well, there are six of us and we each go through at least a container during the week and then we have guests. I can’t risk running out.”

My niece who has also inherited the cream cheese addiction then says, 

“Well if they are out, I’m coming to your house to get cream cheese.”

Panic. What if she shows up? 

I'd hate the be the Breakstone delivery man. I think they sneak him in the store in the middle of the night to avoid any injury.

My mother called me the other day, “Did you get your cream cheese yet? Can you pick me up 2 containers.” 

Oi! Back to the store. 

She's 83 and doesn't cook anymore. How can she possibly go through two containers? I guess it's hereditary.

It’s like if we don’t have cream cheese, we don’t have Passover. We typically eat it with matzah and smear jelly on top. I’ve tried it during the year with bread and although a bagel does it justice, neither are anywhere as tantalizing as the cream cheese with jelly and matzah. And don't dare use it with matzah during the year. That is sacrilegious. 

Now there are backups and replacement cream cheeses like the $8.00 cholov yisroel (for the Super Jews who only eat extra-supervised dairy items), but I’m telling you now, it does not come close to the whipped Breakstone Temp Tee Cream Cheese. 

My kids will eat it for breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner and snack. Which brings me to the question as to why I feel compelled then to hoard the other grocery items I’ve purchased before Passover like those golden (that would be their cost) macaroons, chocolate almonds and enough meat, eggs and cake mixes to feed a small army. 

Thank G-d for Costco. Now I can buy three times what I really need at four times the cost. 

My husband, and now two of my boys, are non-gebracht (as is my dog), so that means they wont eat  the foods that have the five grains mixed with water (plus eating cream cheese on handmade shmura matzah is not the same), but my daughter and her four guests ("Mom can I bring four guests home?") as well as my other son and I are not. So that means I also needed those overpriced cake mixes which they love. “And, Mom, be sure to have the muffin mix for us.”

I have three of the "golden" muffin mixes.

The sad thing is that if I wait until Passover is over, I can buy them at 1/5 of the cost and save them for next year. Now that should make us all wonder... and a bit leery.  

Anyway, back to the cream cheese. It is safely tucked away in my frig and once I make it through an amazing seder that will catapult me into freedom nirvana, I will wake up spiritually in sync...

 ....but craving matzah with cream cheese and jelly.

Oh and the jelly? That's up for discussion and personal preference but I can tell you that the kosher jelly companies aren't doing too bad either.

As I've told my kids, "Consider selling kosher food or toilet paper. We can't live without either."

Breakstone can thank me and thousands of others who can’t go one week without cream cheese.

Such a delicacy. 

Have a meaningful and kosher Passover.