I grew up a bit differently from most children. You see, I actually liked some vegetables better than sweets. I know that might sound a bit strange to most parents. My preferences might have been tied to the reality that my mother fed me baby foods until I was about twenty-eight. In retrospect, I now recognize that none of the major babyinfant food companies squeeze a pureed slice of a fudge brownie into a little glass jar.
My candy consumption was also limited. After I would come home from trick or treating every Halloween night, my mother would make me dump my goodies on the floor, where we would both seat ourselves, cross-legged. We would sort them into three piles. In one pile would go the things Mrs. Robertson made. Those went straight into the garbage, because Mom was sure that Mrs. Robertson let her fourteen cats walk all over the kitchen counters. The pile next to the toxic contributions of Mrs. Robertson was made up of any apples and small boxes of raisins that I had been given. The apples were always provided by the two dentists who lived in our neighborhood. That pile was mine. I was never too sure what happened to the third pile, the one that had candy of every sort imaginable and popcorn balls. As soon as the sorting was finished, my mom hastily took those into my parent’s bedroom. They never again appeared. The only time I ever was allowed to have candy was when I visited one pair of grandparents. (My other grandparents only tried to give me buttermilk. I resent cows to this day.)
In defense of my mother, I believe that this sort of behavior is taught in the top secret motherhood school. I noticed that when my son was growing up, his mother hid all his candy after Halloween, too. However my wife has never revealed the exact curriculum of this top secret school.
At twenty-nine, just as I was beginning to learn that meat, vegetables and applesauce do not have identical textures in their natural states, I discovered dessert in the form of a gourmet cheesecake. Actually, I now know that the word gourmet is rarely applied to anything that comes from the discount grocery store in an ugly box with a small cellophane peep hold. The cheesecake turned out to be mostly chemicals–delicious chemicals. But to my mouth that was primarily accustomed to pale brown meat in almost liquid form and thoroughly mashed green beans, it was heavenly.
Some years later, as I went through my gastronomical adolescence, my recreational use of foods helped me to realize that cheesecake didn’t really taste like cardboard, as my first experience had led me to believe. I also discovered that cheesecake can come in a variety of flavors besides blueberry.
Dessert is now my reason for living! The best way to top off a well balanced meal of two jars of meat, three jars of thoroughly squashed squash and a banana is with a turtle cheesecake. Don’t allow this news to leak to my mother, though; she’ll just take it to her bedroom.
The saddest part of this story is that I don’t even know how to make a cheesecake. Please tell me if you have a good recipe. Make sure that your recipe doesn’t require using either an oven or a whisk. I can operate a blender, though, since I took notes while my mother prepared the Christmas ham one year.
Author’s remarks: It’s possible I may have exaggerated just a bit here and there, but don’t mention it to my mom. She doesn’t have a computer and thinks the Internet is a type of support stocking. I don’t have to worry about her actually reading this.