Making of a cheese cake...

We are in the process of going through a 4d off, as a part of Thanksgiving holiday.

We had decided that we would make a cheese-cake on one of those days. The process to make was to go find a recipe (from book, net or ipad), get the ingredients by going to the store and then come home and make it.

I've this habit of picking up some odd books during garage sales - one such book was a big recipe book that details all kinds of cakes and dessert. So, it was the turn of DS to go through the book to find one. His DM gave him a start page to look at - he looked through it and zeroed on one of the recipe - my suspicion being he just pattern matched 'cheese cake' with one the first title he saw ! :-) But he is not supposed to get off that easy, right ? So I took him to index and told him to look for recipes under cheesecake, and page #s. He found several and kind of understood the difference between contents and index page of a book - we think so. Next is to look for recipes in iPad with the all-recipes and epicurious app. Found several again - the key learning here was the reviews - he understood the number of stars made a difference... In any case, we finally, rejected all the recipes and went back to a simple one from the recipe book.

Next step, go to the store and get all the ingredients. Shopping list - check ! But, both DW and I were pretty much clueless about where to find the ingredients - most of them. For example, the recipe list said 'softened cheese' - so how is it different from other cheese. Implies that we need to ask around at the store with the employees there - as we did this, we gave running commentary that we didn't know and hence we are asking around. Finally got all the ingredients and it was now time to make it.

I've probably stated this earlier in these chronicles. DS, although, doesn't like the sound of blender, has adjusted well with it at school during their cooking classes. But at home, he still has that - so typically, we work that when he is at the bath or out taking out the garbage. Yesterday, it was cold and I didn't want him to go out simply. So I told him the option of staying in a room behind closed doors; he didn't like it, got angry and said, he'd actually operate the blender himself ! He did so (and a day later, he believes that sometimes good things can come out of anger :-)). It was pretty good experience then on - he wanted to operate the egg-beater, to mix the egg, cheese, sour-cream etc... He was completely involved in the whole exercise, helping out, doing (or more than) his part, cleaning up, switching pots and pans etc...

Here is the photo of the end product...

Later on during the night, we went to the movie Real Steel across the street. He enjoyed the movie - also he broke a "rule" for that. He doesn't like to go to a movie after dinner, because it would imply a late-night movie, which he doesn't want to go to. Yesterday, we had dinner and then went to the movie - he really enjoyed it... the only question he asks these days is this - how long is the movie - he has had the Avatar experience - not a 3-hr boring movie ! :-) How true !!! I wouldn't want to subject my greatest enemy to that experience (in fact, not to any of James Cameron experience ! :-))