Palm Springs’ Santos Cocktail Cheese was entire world-well known
The newspaper advertisement featured a picture of Bob Hope on the still left and Bing Crosby on the right. Soon after a dozen a long time of six “Street Images,” the two ended up at the height of their fame in 1955 at the time of the advert. Involving their portraits the duplicate read through, “Bob Hope says: Santos Cocktail Cheese tends to make my tummy chuckle. Bing Crosby states: Santos Cocktail Cheese is the last detail in spreads, and I ought to know.”
Presented how critical Hope and Crosby had been, that the pair were keen to give a testimonial for a cheese spread was amazing. Santos Cocktail Cheese was without a doubt especially delicious. The comfortable mixture was unfold on to crackers or scooped with crudité. Demand for the specialty was so great it introduced a mail-order business enterprise and catering problem.
Santos and Lynda de Jesus moved to Palm Springs for great in 1947, acquiring been recruited by Charlie Farrell. Born in 1902, Santos immigrated to San Francisco just after higher school, from the Philippines immediately after a cease in Singapore where by he acquired unique flavors and how to prepare dinner. He examined at night college and with sufficient credits attained entrance to Stanford University and labored at Menlo Park Nation Club. During WWII, he labored for the governing administration. In the desert right after the war, he began working at the Desert Inn for Nellie Coffman and in the kitchen of the Palm Springs Tennis Club.
Motion picture stars and socialites hung out at the bar. Bob Hope was there après golf, using the bar as the 19th gap. On a single such situation he preferred a snack to go with his drink. Santos went to the kitchen area and whipped up the cocktail cheese. Santos’ daughter, Lynda, remembers it was a spur of the minute recipe for a thing that “went very well with booze.” Hope thought it tasty and explained, “let’s jar it up and I will endorse it.”
Quickly Santos’ imaginative recipe was included in the cafe choices, and bash guests and bar patrons had been clamoring to get home the cheesy concoction.
Realizing there was ample demand from customers, Santos started his possess business supplying his signature solutions in 1950. He obligingly packaged and mailed jars of cheese and salad dressings to guests who needed to take residence the taste of Palm Springs. Inevitably Santos Cocktail Cheese could be located across the country in fantastic retailers.
The Honolulu Advertiser noted in a meals column in 1951, “Whether it’s been on the sector for a century or for a day the only need it demands to surface on the shelves or in the counters at May’s is: it must be prime quality… A thing new in the Delicatessen Counter tho’—and this we will convey to about! Jean Aumont, May’s Delicatessen Gentleman, is pretty enthusiastic about his latest Gourmet Conversation Piece: SANTOS SALAD DRESSING AND COCKTAIL CHEESE. And just after 1 mere sample on our very own we concur that it is a little something to rave about. The Salad Dressing, by Santos, is among the very best well prepared dressings we have ever had. It’s a thick creamy form with a lot of zip and spice. Excellent for tossed salads or stuffed tomatoes and cucumbers and the like. Kind of a fluffy French Dressing with OOMPH.”
But Advertiser reserved the best praise for the cocktail cheese, guessing at the recipe and expressing it “is a efficiently blended cream cheese with a wonderfully balance blend of seasonings and spices. Among the other tang-loan providers are Worcestershire, Celery and Onion Juice, Paprika, and Garlic. There’s just plenty of of each individual one particular so that the cheese has a unique flavor all its individual. Simply cannot say it has a garlicky taste, nor an oniony just one. What it is, is DOWNRIGHT Great CHEESE. Excellent for stuffing celery, and softened, an superb cheese dipping sauce. Santos Cocktail Cheese we’d say is a person of the unusual few spreads that are destined to attractiveness to every single flavor, just as they arrive from the jar.”
An obscure extravagant meals keep named Desert Treasures in Arizona provided an assortment of jams, jellies, dates, fruit cakes, and citrus by subscription. There was vacation hamper stuffed with all kinds of delicacies and jars of Santos Cocktail Cheese ended up involved in a decision of two sizes. The Washington Current market in Utah boasted it had it exclusively. In Kansas City it was touted along with cheeses from close to the world. It was for sale Kentucky at the most high-priced grocery retail store chain. The Honolulu Advertiser deemed it “An appetizer worthy of the very best enterprise, loaded and affluent aunts, or the most fastidious male about city.”
Santos was manufacturing jars of cheese at a great charge. The total family members was enlisted to assist in the enterprise. 6 older brothers and daughter Lynda realized to make it and pack it to deliver all around the environment.
Meanwhile Santos himself was now hectic managing the bar at Thunderbird Region Club. He was in demand and began to cater the lunches and particular affairs at the Committee of 25, a personal men’s club that opened its doorways in Palm Springs in 1948. He coordinated the kitchen area and set up exclusive dining activities at Deep Very well Ranch from 1952 as a result of 1957. The cocktail cheese producing was found at The Heart, following to KDES and the Desert Sunlight. The newspaper and radio males ended up dependable shoppers, and word of the cheese unfold all around town.
All the swankiest parties in the desert were being catered by Santos. Devoid of a doubt, Santos fed the well-known. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were pictured in his ads and Santos was a fixture at their functions. Frank Sinatra was a frequent purchaser. Phil Harris, Alice Faye, and Lily Pons depended on him for their functions. Santos fed 2,000 persons at the housewarming opening of the Spa Resort and 700 people today at the Desert Museum following Arthur Rubinstein performed a profit live performance. He catered the initially meal of the Bob Hope Golfing Classic at Robert McCullough’s Thunderbird household.
Hope ongoing to advertise the cheese, sending it to President Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, foreign dignitaries and all his close friends.
The manufacturing worry expanded and moved with the newspaper and radio station to the recently designed Sunlight Center. Santos tried using to retire at the time but was far too bored. He commenced paying the summers in Michigan controlling the Very little Harbor Yacht Club, catering to foremost family members like the Wrigleys and the Fords. Santos turned down an offer you to acquire his profitable Palm Springs catering organization which he’d developed with such ingenuity. Santos ongoing to operate for the rest of his long daily life, generating stomachs chuckle and buyers happy.
Continuing the spouse and children custom, daughter Lynda is again whipping up Santos Cocktail Cheese for her niece’s new bar, Useless or Alive, on Palm Canyon. It pairs completely with a glass of wine.
Tracy Conrad is president of the Palm Springs Historic Modern society. The Thanks for the Memories column seems Sundays in The Desert Sun. Create to her at [email protected]