Dale’s Cheesecake with Beer
Mom and Dad’s author photo from 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South with an earthenware jug that Mom liked to serve tea out of.
Mom collected all sorts of pottery. Here is a devil-themed face jug from her kitchen. (Mom sent me this photo as encouragement when I arm wrestled for charity as a character called “She-Devil”.)
Another face jug on the piano in the “new” library at the Carolina Meadows house.
Mom cooking fried okra with some more of her pottery on the counter of the Mallette St. kitchen.
The actual recipe!
I hope that your Thanksgiving was a good one, filled with friends, family, and maybe some yummy boozy sweet potatoes? Ours was pretty fab, we went to New York to toast my Dad and his wife, Linda, and meet her family. Fortunately, Linda’s kids are great cooks and we snagged a place at their table on turkey day! On Friday, we hosted a small reception in Brooklyn for Dad and Linda. Friends from all over the New York area went to great lengths to come celebrate. Two such people were Jonathan and Joanna Cole, old pals from Dad’s days in the 1960s at Columbia University. Joanna shared with me today’s recipe for Cheesecake with Beer (which I honestly don’t remember ever having but it sounds promising!) and she shared a story with my sister. I’m kind of playing the game of “Telephone” by relaying this story to you without fact checking it with Joanna, but I think I have the basics down. Essentially, it’s another cool “Mom saves the day” story. A common theme, no? Evidently, Joanna was down from New York visiting my parents when my sister was a toddler. Mom decided to load Elisabeth, my sis, in the car and take Joanna on a tour of the North Carolina potteries. (If you don’t know, there’s a great tradition there, particularly in Seagrove.). Mom and Joanna bought some pieces and were returning home when the car started to overheat. Thinking fast, Mom grabbed the newly purchased pottery, walked over to a conveniently located lake or stream or something, scooped up some water and came back to cool the radiator so they could keep on trucking. Yup, that sounds like Mom!
It was interesting being back in New York this past week. I lived there in the mid-1990s when poverty and a 5th floor walk-up didn’t faze me. Every time I’ve visited since, I’ve been in some mediocre hotel or crashing on someone’s sofa, so I found the city experience a little exhausting. However, this time, we did it right. We got a GREAT AirBnB a few blocks away from my new step-sister’s place with room for all of us to breathe. What a difference that made on my mental state! I really enjoyed my visit. Now, back to that 1990s East Village 5th floor walk up, that was quite a situation. In another blog post, I recalled my parents helping me move there and Dad hiring the homeless guy with the stack of porno magazines to assist. (Click the link if you didn’t read that one!). As you can guess, when looking for an apartment in New York, you have to move fast. The search for this apartment was pre-internet and my roommate and I found this place in the Village Voice. Honestly, it was the first place we looked at and we should have KEPT ON LOOKING, but, you know, panic, ignorance, and naivety makes for some great decisions. (Also, our jerk bosses wouldn’t give us time to look for an apartment! I was literally given one morning off and that was all.) We had a super charming Scottish realtor who my roommate, Missy, and I were convinced would become one – or both! – of our boyfriends after we signed the lease. (Note: We only saw him once more in a restaurant and he pretended he didn’t know us.) The apartment, on top of being a 5th floor walk up, was not great in general. It had one decent sized bedroom with windows overlooking the back of a Polish restaurant and one ridiculously small bedroom with a tiny window looking onto an air shaft. The living room was reasonable and the charming Scot convinced us that if we built a wall in the living room, separating it from all of the kitchen stuff, and then tore down the wall of the tiny bedroom, opening it up to the hall (thereby making a bedroom out of the living room and a living room out of the bad bedroom), we would have a perfect apartment. He said he knew someone in the building who had done that. Of course he did! (Liar.) Did he know anyone to do the work, we asked? Of course he did! Did they apply for a permit? Of course they didn’t! Can I tell you that these idiot 20 year olds (me!) wrote a check to some guy who tore down a wall and was carrying it down the stairs when the building’s superintendent caught him, called us, and demanded that we build it back?! We were such yahoos that we didn’t know that you had to check with maybe, um, the OWNER of the building to do demo! We built it back, returning the bedroom to a prison cell and we never got to put up the kitchen wall, so my poor roommate just moved into the open kitchen/living room. And, that was just the first week! It continued to go downhill from there. One day I stopped by the place during lunch and a bunch of neighborhood kids were playing out front with the hose. I’m such a goody goody (or just a frugal Reed!) that I thought their wasted water would translate to a higher bill for me. So, I confronted them and explained that they shouldn’t be messing with our water. I’m sure you can guess what happened next. Who got the holy hell sprayed out of them?! Yup, me, in my “big city clothes” that Mom had bought for me at Loehmann’s.
Sarah = 0 / East Village Kids = 1
So, it was good to be back in the city, a lot older and a little wiser. With cheesecake being kind of a New York thing, I think it’s kismet that Joanna shared this recipe with me. Here it is. It doesn’t say what kind of beer to use. Perhaps a Stout? Report back!
DALE’S CHEESECAKE WITH BEER
1 ½ cup graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup melted butter
4 8 oz packages cream cheese
½ cup grated cheddar cheese
¼ cup heavy cream
¼ cup beer
1 ½ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
2 egg yolks
Heat over to 300 degrees
Mix crumbs with butter. Press over sides and bottom of 9” spring form pan.
Beat cream cheese til soft and creamy.
Add cheddar and gradually beat in sugar. Mix well.
Add vanilla.
Beat in eggs and egg yolks one at a time. Continue to beat until mixture is smooth and satiny.
Fold in heavy cream and beer.
Back about 1 ½ hours, until set.
Leave in oven overnight.
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