BOOK/A TABLE - Davey's Cheesecake

My fella had a birthday recently, but we’d been celebrating here and there with scattered presents (a backgammon set, a dan dan noodle kit!) and a few special dinners since June. We figured looking forward to a birthday celebration in August results in leaving the bulk of summer too swiftly behind. But you know what? The summer flew ferociously past us just the same.

I surprised David with a table at The View in Times Square’s Marriott Marquis, the only revolving restaurant in Manhattan. They reopened several months ago after undergoing extensive renovations and we felt as though we’d booked passage on a Cruise Ship Time Machine dialed back to the 1980’s. Now, we loved the retro-ness of all of that (and the food is decent, by the way), but the real surprise was that most of the other patrons seemed more interested in their cell phone screens than the view of the city landscape unfolding below.

We also went to D.C. for a long weekend where we caught up with old friends, visited Julia Child’s kitchen at the Smithsonian, and bent elbows at The Willard. 

And then we came home to cheesecake!

I’d been thinking of making a cheesecake for David’s birthday since the spring when I borrowed my mother’s copy of Murder By Cheesecake. It’s a cozy mystery by Rachel Ekstrom Courage based on The Golden Girls series. I prefer the television series frankly, but the recipe for cheesecake with a lingonberry drizzle (in honor of Norwegian Golden Girl Rose Nylund) in the back pages of the book is a sweet touch. It also served as a lovely finale for all our festivities.

“Then Rose spent the afternoon making enough cheesecake to feed an army. She’d invented a new recipe infused with the traditional flavors of her beloved hometown to celebrate the lovebirds. Saint Olaf’s Kiss was a creamy vanilla cheesecake surrounded by an almond-and-graham cracker crust and topped with a sweet lingonberry drizzle.”

There needn’t be any particular celebration in order to make this cheesecake, though—sitting down with a nice drizzled slice to watch an episode of The Golden Girls is reason enough!

Murder by Cheesecake with Lingonberry Drizzle
Recipe developed by Sandra Ekstrom and Rachel Ekstrom Courage

Crust:
2 c. graham crackers (about 12 full-size crackers), crushed
½ c. slivered almonds
½ c. melted butter
⅓ c. sugar

Filling:
4 8-oz. pkgs. cream cheese, room temperature
1 c. sugar
1 T. flour
1 t. vanilla extract
4 whole eggs, room temperature
1 egg yolk, room temperature
½ c. cream

Lingonberry Drizzle:
1 jar lingonberries
Water (as needed)
Sugar (as needed)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Spray or butter a 10-inch springform pan.

Crush graham crackers and almonds in a food processor until fine. Add melted butter and sugar, processing until combined. Press mixture evenly onto the bottom and up the sides of the prepared pan.

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, flour, and vanilla until smooth. Gradually beat in eggs, egg yolk, and cream until fully combined. Pour filling into the crust. Bake for 15 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 250°F and bake for 1 hour.

Remove from oven and cool completely on a wire rack. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

To prepare the drizzle, slowly heat the jar of Lingonberries in a saucepan over low heat. Add water, one tablespoon at a time, to thin the sauce to the desired consistency. Add sugar, one teaspoon at a time, to achieve the desired sweetness. Gently spoon the sauce over the cooled cheesecake. Refrigerate to set.

To serve, dip a knife in water and wipe between cuts.

Enjoy your Murder by Cheesecake with a tangy and sweet lingonberry drizzle!

 

Pete's Dragon Bowl

Oh! How I used to love getting a Dragon Bowl from Angelica Kitchen! Chockablock full of vitamins, it wasn’t just a healthy meal after going for a run—it was also such a simple treasure to eat, rooting through all the tasty vegetables and seaweed dressed in a delicious tahini sauce.

Angelica closed some years ago, most unfortunately. While I realize that things must change, I nevertheless mourn the loss of my favorite Manhattan places (along with the memories they held), especially when they are replaced by something less memorable.

While the recipes for my beloved chimichangas from Bandito’s and Croque Monsieurs from Café de Bruxelles have been lost to time, I did find the recipe for the Dragon Bowl they used to serve at Angelica.

Be inventive and use your favorite greens, beans, and root vegetables to fill the bowl. I hope you enjoy this little time capsule! Per usual, my comments below are in italics.

Dragon Bowl

From the kitchen of Jules Dirsa originally adapted from a recipe in The Angelica Home Kitchen by Leslie McEachern.

Ingredients
1 bunch of steamed greens (ex: collard greens, mustard greens, kale, Swiss chard, or bok choy)
1 cup rice or other grains
1 cup beans or tofu (adzuki beans or garbanzo beans, pinto beans, etc.)
4 cups root vegetables or seasonal steamed vegetables (ex: carrots, beets, summer squash, rutabaga, parsnip, or zucchini)
1 oz or 1 cup sea vegetables (arame, sea palm, or hijiki, etc)
2 tbsp. tamari (wheat-free) or shoyu (brewed soy sauce)
1/3 cup julienned carrots
1/3 cup of onion sliced into thin crescents
4 cups of water

For the Dressing
1/2 cup firmly packed fresh parsley, washed, dried, and chopped
1 whole scallion/green onion, rinsed and sliced
1/4 cup tahini

1 tablespoon umeboshi paste (can be hard to find, also expensive; try subbing with brown rice vinegar or red wine vinegar with a dash of salt)
1/2 cup of water

Method
1. Prepare the rice and protein of choice, steam the greens and veggies. 

2. If using sea veggies: Soak for 30 minutes, then simmer in water for 25 minutes with julienned carrots, onion, and tamari. 

3. Assemble the bowl by layering each component into a colorful pile. 

4. Combine all the ingredients for the dressing in a blender and puree until smooth. 

5. Pour dressing on top of assembled dragon bowl.