Day Ten: I Need Cheesecake...

Ahh, Cheesecake!  This delectable little dessert has played an important role in my life for as long as I can remember.  Not only is it one of my favorite desserts, but in high school cheesecake became something of a code word amongst my girlfriends for "I'm having a hard time and we need to gorge ourselves with cheesecake and talk about it."  There has been many a tear shed over New York style cheesecake smothered in strawberries at our favorite local restaurant.  Occasionally, there still are!

So it might be surprising to learn that I have never, in fact, made my own cheesecake.  I have had to pay people to make one or have relied on the kindness of others to get my cheesecake fix.  So when the call went out on facebook that there was a need for cheesecake, I decided to remedy this problem.  Thus, the concept of a cheesecake tasting party was created and planned.  And the big day is tomorrow!.  Despite the fact that we are hosting said tasting party, my husband has publicly stated on facebook his intention of boycotting our party if there will not be a key lime cheesecake.  So my mission has been clear.  Key lime cheesecake, here we come!

To make this novel experience happen, I first needed to face a fear and have another novel experience:  taking both children to the grocery store without backup!  So I piled the children in the car and off we went.  

My first painful discover occurred when I got to the store and found that there were NO TODDLER CARTS.  I'm not sure if that's the official terminology for the carts with the little car in front where you can strap your little monster in for a ride, but whatever they're called, there was not one to be seen.  Therefore, I had to improvise...

Dance!  Dance!

I inserted the largest version of this photo so that you can note certain details of this experience:  the food stuffed into the tiny space next to the car seat so it will be inaccessible to my toddler...  the relatively small size of the cart, the biggest they had available...  the fact that my son is in motion in this photo...  Immediately after i took this photo, my son stood up and announced his intention to dance to the muzak pumping out of the grocery store's speakers.  Several moments later he tried to pull a bottle of wine off of a display.  Good times!

So I ran through the store as quickly as I  could, grabbing key limes, cream cheese, and a pre-made crust and headed to the check out.  My son had taken a particular liking to the two bags of key limes and initially refused to give them to the cashier.  The cashier looked at my son on the verge of a meltdown and took inventory of the ingredients in my cart with visible sympathy.  In an effort to be helpful, she shook her head and said, "It's not worth making a key lime pie from scratch.  We have some in the bakery."  True story!  But my resolve was not shaken.  I handed her my credit card...  and it was denied!  Looks like identity theft might be another novel experience for me to have today!  Finally, everything was paid for and we were on the road with ingredients in hand.

The Official Holder of the Key Limes

By the time I'd sorted out the credit card issue and dealt with the other responsibilities of my day, it was getting late.  So with my youngest in the front pack, and my toddler safely in bed, I set out to get the 2/3 cup of key lime juice needed for the recipe I was following.  Now, I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of working with key limes, but they are tiny.  And, I was finding, they are also virtually juiceless.  I went through an entire bag of key limes using an actual citrus juicer and still only managed to get half of the juice called for.  With my finger stinging from a "zesting" incident and my hands dry and raw from an hour of juicing, I made an executive decision to risk my husband's attendance at our party.  (Sorry, honey!)  It took exactly one traditional lime and one lemon to equal the juice I had gotten from a bag of key limes and, from this point on, the preparation of my LEMON-LIME cheesecake went along swimmingly.  I had the cheesecake in the oven by 10:00 pm and cooling in the refrigerator by 11:00.  Success was mine!

One of the main reasons I'm having so much fun with this experiment is that I am learning all sorts of interesting factoids from my adventures.  Today's interesting factoid was brought to you by my husband, (after I had gone through the hassles of juicing a bazillion key limes with an infant in the front pack, of course).  Here it is:

Apparently, you can buy key limes PRE-JUICED at our local grocery store.  While I did look for bottled key lime juice in the produce section by the actual limes, apparently it is housed in the alcoholic beverage aisle.  Go figure!  Oh well, live and learn!