It’s
strange cooking for someone who used to eat your food.
It’s not
that I haven’t been through death before. I have. Several times. I think I’ve
even gone to a funeral for someone who’s eaten something I brought in for a pot
luck. I know that my late husband ate my cooking. I’ve been cooking for a while. But I don’t think of myself of having come into my own as far as cooking, baking, and/or preserving goes until after he passed away, and even moreso after the birth of my son, the one who gave me a valid reason to learn to do these things.
This time it's different. My BFF lost her stepmother, Bonnie, this week. Bonnie was a great lady. She was full of life. I know Bonnie used
to like cheesecake, and she’s had several of my desserts. So that’s what makes
this weird.
The first thing
we do as a world culture is make sure the family of the deceased eats. In
certain cultures, you don’t even let the grieving family go near the kitchen –
you bring food, you send food, you order catering – but they are the survivors,
and they have to survive. We need food and water and oxygen to survive.
There’s
been a lot of grieving this week in my life, but in the life of my country as
well. It’s been hard being a Canadian this week. And when I say that I don’t
mean being Canadian – it’s been easier to be Canadian this week than it was
during the Winter Olympics earlier this year. It’s just been hard here. We as a
collective have been through the gamut. We had our collective hearts broken and
torn out by senseless acts of violence. We’ve had our hope restored through
people whom we had come to regard as figureheads. And we have come together as
a nation – for the most part – to help each other survive this mess and keep
going forward.
And in the middle
of all of this, before it even began, my BFF lost someone she loved and cared
for. In the middle of her family’s private grief, there was this very public
loss and grief.
And that’s
the day she reached out to ask for help.
So I
decided to make something I haven’t made in a while. A cheesecake. I’m not sure
why that’s the first thing I thought of, since I have apples and it’s pie
season. It’s a helluvalot easier to bake a pie than to make a cheesecake. But I
think it was because I hadn’t made one for a while. And it just seemed like the
right time to make one.
So Rest In
Peace, Bonnie Smith. Thank you for being you, and for being kind to me at a
time when I felt like a stranger in my own land. I really wish you were here to
have a piece of this apple cinnamon cheesecake I’m making for you. You take
care, and rest well until we meet again. Hopefully you will be there to guide
me through another place where I’m going to feel like a stranger in a strange
land.
Apple Cinnamon Cheesecake
The recipe and method is the same as the Pumpkin Cheesecake I published earlier, except in place of 2 cups of pumpkin, you would use 2 cups of baked Honeycrisp Apple puree. With the change of fruit, you would use 2 heaping tsp of cinnamon, 1/4 heaping tsp. cloves, and 1/2 tsp. nutmeg as spices.
Apple Cinnamon Cheesecake
The recipe and method is the same as the Pumpkin Cheesecake I published earlier, except in place of 2 cups of pumpkin, you would use 2 cups of baked Honeycrisp Apple puree. With the change of fruit, you would use 2 heaping tsp of cinnamon, 1/4 heaping tsp. cloves, and 1/2 tsp. nutmeg as spices.
