Everyone loves snack time!

“So you really do like cottage cheese now, huh?” We are all sitting around the snack table with our white paper bags flattened and spread out before us. Each one is individualized with our hand-written goodie choices on a small slip that comes stapled to its corresponding bag. We choose our snacks for the week at the tail end of menu planning on Thursdays and work from a printed list of options and possible combinations. There aren’t specific calories listed but the general idea is to pick what we want with the goal of aiming for about 400 calories in total. The list is pretty extensive and the combos seemingly endless, plus we can ask about adding in different things that we may have liked about one of that particular day’s meals. For instance, if cheesecake was the dessert with dinner and a second helping is wanted for snack, then voila! It is done! A dessert lover at heart this is an indulgence Benji frequently partakes in. Right now he is sitting to my right, watching, as I unload goodies from my bag.

Tonight the magic number is 3, there are 3 snack components, and I pull out an individual serving of Honey Nut Cheerios, a half cup of cottage cheese in a plastic container, and a small wax bag with 10 vanilla wafers in it. Benji has got a half cup of granola and a personal-sized carton of whole milk like the ones I remember being served in school cafeterias back in the day. At the moment he is busily picking through the granola and sanctioning off his favorite part – the raisins. He does the same thing with Raisin Bran cereal whenever he has it.

“Yea, I guess so.” I reply to his question. “I don’t know…its weird. Its good with salt and maybe some granola mixed in…”

“I just remember you saying, when you first got here, how much you hated it and how much you hoped you wouldn’t have to eat it.”

“I know, and I didn’t like it then. At all. As far back as I can remember I have always hated cottage cheese. The stuff that they serve here though isn’t how I remember it.”

Benji pushed through the granola with his index finger searching for any extra stealthfully hidden raisins. “Probably because here it is full-fat. I bet thats why it tastes different.”

“Part of its the texture, too. Before I didn’t like how it was just runny and watery with little things the consistency of blood clots in it. I didn’t like how it felt in my mouth.” I had finished my vanilla wafers which were on the low end of the quality scale this evening since they were chewy, like gum. Due to such variations in crispness among the wafers I guessed a while back that the kitchen probably portioned out our little bags from a much larger industrial type of box. The ones that came out when the box was first opened still held the crispness the ‘Nilla creator had in mind, while the others, the ones at the end, may have been of better use to a glue company judging by the amount they stuck to the roof of your mouth.

Benji watched me open the Cheerios and drop a few into the first layer of cheese, the top section that I had just finished mixing salt into. “I still hate cottage cheese.” He said somewhat warily, as though someone might try and force him to eat it sometime soon. “I can’t stand the stuff.”

“Oh well,” I said with my mouth full, “I don’t know what kind it was that I was eating before that I didn’t like so much but I like this now.” I spooned some more cereal onto the concoction. “And thats something new to add to the list too. Its not just good with salt or granola, but Honey Nut Cheerios as well.”

“Did you ever consider just eating it like a normal person?” He asked.

I grinned at him. “Whats normal?”