Past Expiration

I came across a recipe for carrot cake pancakes and printed it off for The Banana, who was home from college on spring break, to try making. She made plans with Mr. TOF for a carrot cake pancake extravaganza, and they checked the ingredient list with me to see if we had all the supplies.

“I think you need to get cream cheese,” I said.

“Oh! No, we have cream cheese,” Mr. TOF insisted. “It’s right here in the fridge. See?”

“OK. Then I don’t think we need to go get anything, actually,” said The Banana.

Then they got busy with other things and didn’t make the pancakes. On Sunday afternoon, right before Mr. TOF needed to go to his rehearsal and The Banana was getting ready to leave for college, they decided to have a pancake party after all, which involved a lot of wild music and dancing in the kitchen, mixing, pouring and all things pancakes.

It was time to make the maple syrup, cream cheese drizzle that goes on the pancakes. They got out the cream cheese. They started mixing. Mr. TOF questioned something about the cheese, and The Banana pulled the package out and looked at the expiration date.

Let’s just say that little box had been hiding in the fridge for quite some time. No wonder I didn’t remember purchasing it!

The cream cheese smelled fine and looked fine, so they used it anyway, and no one got sick. Hooray.