The pineapple that saved summer vacation

It's getting to be that time of year when displays of folders, backpacks, and number two pencils on display everywhere make my blood run cold. Next week is my last official week of being semi-off-duty (I'm never really off, but summer work is a lot lighter!), and it's going to be filled with syllabus-writing and class website construction. Fun.

That means today I want to post a fun, summery recipe that always makes me smile when I see it. 

Yes, from McCall's Cocktail-Time Cookbook (1965), it's the Cheese Pâté Pineapple.

Yep, it's just a cheese ball covered with sliced olives and dressed up to look like a pineapple from a fever dream, and I can't help loving it. The garish, almost-neon orange contrasted with the olive-and-red speckles (Maybe it's a pineapple with olive pox!), the carefully-sculpted lines between the olives, the real-pineapple crown-- it's just so beautifully improbable. Someone even added a champagne coupe in the foreground to suggest that this is a sophisticated appetizer, not an edible craft project. The photo could almost be a surrealist artwork. It's... It's indescribably beautiful. It reminds me of the fourth of July-- which is much further from the start of school than today is. And that's why we're all staring at a (literally) cheesy pineapple right now. 

P.S.- I will have one last bit of summer fun on this blog a week from Monday, just as classes start.