Short and sweet.
I made the cheesecake. It was the shortest recipe ever. And sweetest.
I’m eating the cheesecake.
I cried through making the cheesecake.
It doesn’t take very long. The list of steps and ingredients were very short and sweet. My dads writing for his sisters recipe barely legible as I pondered if things were tsp. Or tbls. Or a 3 or a 1. Important things? Maybe. Too much lime, since I didn’t have lemon has made it taste a bit like the lime cheesecake I sort of wanted to make but it is a sour cream cheese cake. Too much butter in the crust never seems to be a problem but not enough will make it mealy and crumble.
It didn’t worn me not to over beat the egg. But I figured any added air bubbles from wondering off from the mixer to just wonder off from the mixer would confuse the cheese and egg mixture and make it more like a fluff or maybe burn with all the extra air in it. Dad probably learned this the hard way. Then never wrote it down.
The instructions said nothing about a pan of water boiling. But many of the recipes I had looked up, before deciding to cry over my dads showed boiling pans of water. I asked my mom. She said yes. Do that. He figured that out later, she says.
I sprinkled a little kosher salt on top of the crust. To add my salty tears. Short and sweet and salty.
My dad ate food like it was going out of style. He savored it like it was the last thing he would ever eat. If asked, he would pick cheesecake as the last thing he would ever eat.
My mom told me to talk to him while I made it. I couldn’t. I talked to her. She is the one here. He is gone.
If I really think and imagine I imagine he was talking to me. Telling me to talk to my mom. Ask your mother. He said. I always wanted to ask him. Was he talking to me? In a way. In my actions I suppose. In the lack of instructions on how to make a cheese cake.
It was very short and sweet and sad and I saved it for the last thing to do for the day so I could handle the short and sweet and sad. And savor the flavor while I was so sad.
Who wants to be sad? I did. I spent the day avoiding to be able to clear the things away to be the sad. For me. I wanted my dad to see the cake. I wanted him to have a piece. I wanted it to be his last piece of short and sweet and it’s just my short and sweet. And sad. My dad.
Aspenleaf 