Love, Lyrics, and Cheesecake

Originally published in minty-fresh newspapers on December 11, 2008

Maria
Say it loud and there’s music playing
Say it soft and it’s almost like praying

It’s one of the most memorable scenes from West Side Story. At the school mixer, Tony and Maria lock eyes from across the room.  They share a dance, a kiss, and then Tony, bursting with new-found love, starts belting out Maria. We’ve all been there, that moment when we fall head-over-heels and the courses of our lives are changed forever. This is movie love, Broadway-musical love, shout-it-from-the-rooftops love, hopefully without gang wars, murder, and Shakespearian tragedy.

I’ve fallen in love four times in my life. Each love, I was certain, would last forever. I met Debbie in fourth grade and she made my head spin for the next five years. I wrote her a song that sounded suspiciously like You Light Up My Life. Things didn’t work with Debbie. We wanted different things…I wanted her and she wanted my best friend. I floundered around for a couple of years, without feeling the need to burst into song, until Beth entered the picture. When she didn’t get elected homecoming queen I wrote her a song of consolation assuring her, “You’ll be my queen forever, making everything new. That’s why I am (beat) forever in love with you.” I left for college while she finished high school and distance took its tool.

I fell in love for the last time in 1986. While in Gatlinburg that year I paid $9.95 to record a song for her. It was All I Need by soap star turned pop singer Jack Wagner. I gave her the cassette tape and we’ve been together ever since.

If you are counting, you will note that I’ve described three of the four great loves of my life. The fourth occurred on December 16, 1971. It was my seventh birthday and I was celebrating it at my grandmother’s house.  At first is seemed like a typical birthday – cousins, hats, noisemakers, presents. Then my grandmother entered the room with a cake I had never seen before. It had the requisite candles but no gooey frosting and no “Happy Birthday Scott” inscribed on top. My grandmother sliced it and set a piece before me. With the very first bite I knew that this was no ordinary cake. This was a bite of heaven.

Cheesecake
Say it loud and there’s music playing
Say it soft and it’s almost like praying

Thus began my life-long love affair with cheesecake. Nearly every birthday since, this has been my cake of choice. Cheesecake has never left me for my best friend. No matter how far from it I roam, my love never wanes. Even when I stray and take a nibble of carrot cake or a lustful second helping of German chocolate, cheesecake always welcomes me back. Cheesecake asks for nothing in return.

Normally I am a cheesecake purist. I don’t any strawberries or cherries on it and I waste no time at the Cheesecake Factory debating which one to try, plain is just fine with me. This holiday season, however, I decided that cheesecake and I needed to spice things up a bit. Thirty-seven years, after all, is a long time together. Peppermint Cheesecake seemed just right for this holiday season. You’ll be happy to know that cheesecake and I have an open relationship. So, I’m sharing the recipe. Let me know if you break into song.

Peppermint Cheesecake

Crust    
20 vanilla sandwich cookies
3 tablespoons melted butter   

Filling
½ cup sugar
1-1/2 cups sour cream
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 pound cream cheese (room temperature) broken into small pieces
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 package (10 ounces) Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips

In a food processor pulse the cookies until they are small crumbs. Stir in 3 tablespoons melted butter. Press into the bottom of an eight-inch spring form pan.

In a mixer, add the sugar, sour cream, eggs, and vanilla and mix for about one minute. Add the cream cheese and mix until smooth. Mix in the 2 tablespoons melted butter and fold in one cup of the Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips. Pour into pan and bake in the lower third of a 325 degree oven for 60 minutes or until the top begins to brown and an inserted knife comes out clean. Chill for four hours or overnight. Top with whipped cream and the remaining peppermint chips.