So I promised you pictures of the cheesecake, and here it is in all its, um, glory?
I did have wonderful things planned for the presentation of the cake, but due to a miscommunication about the cream that I’d reserved for it, a frantic search for my piping set, with thoughts that I could buy cream on the way, and eventually getting to the dinner party just as everyone else finished their mains… well, my cheesecake remained undecorated. However, somehow that didn’t seem to lessen its appeal. Even as I was walking through to the kitchen with it covered in the enormous cake carrier, a call went around the party “is that cheesecake?”, “Did someone say cheesecake?”, “I heard there was cheesecake!”.
Seriously, within 20 seconds of my placing it on the table, it was under attack. By the time I’d served myself mains, a third of it was gone. It seems I had misunderestimated a) how many US expats would be at dinner and b) the culinary cachet they attach to cheesecake. It seems that cheesecake to them is what pavlova is to us.
And here I feel I need to make a confession. I like cheesecake – the other sort of cheesecake. A creamy, delicious frozen (uncooked) cheesecake. I’ve never really connected with baked cheesecake. (Well, apart from that one time when my friend asked for a baked cheesecake as her birthday cake, so I made her this. That cheesecake was spectacular, if I do say so myself.) Yet here I was sharing a baked cheesecake of my own recipe, and people were going back for seconds. And thirds. I’m feeling pretty good about this.
Confession number 2. The main reason I made this cheesecake was because the dinner invitation came with a challenge. (Confession 2.1: there is a chance that beneath my slacker exterior, I am actually highly competitive.) The challenge was that there would be a prize for the most over-the-top dish description. I knew that I could work with that, so this cheesecake was long planned, and the description oft-drafted (in my head, I’m terrible at writing down my ideas). The description was yesterday’s post, for which I originally intended to create a QR code and print out as my description, but well, the fact that my laptop no longer talks to my printer put paid to that. Instead I loaded up the post on my phone, and placed that by the plate in lieu of a printed description. Which turned out to be a stroke of genius. Nobody could top a link to a picture of the chicken that laid one of the eggs in their dish, especially when that chicken was wearing a crocheted vest. So really, I probably ought to be sharing this with the owner of the chickens, thanking her profusely for a) coming to the party when I twitter-sourced my eggs (I wanted really local), and b) having a blog post featuring the chicken.
This makes me smile. It means that I actually remembered my training as a writer, considered my audience, purpose and media, and hit the mark.
Now, please excuse me while I go deflate my head so I can fit through the doorway. 🙂
