A Holiday Season Unlike Any Other!

2020 is about to end and I know that I can't wait! I hear that collective sigh of relief from you all, as you wait with anticipation for the ball to drop -- figuratively and literally, on what has been a pretty crazy, stressful and sometimes downright awful year. Through it all I drew my strength from my friends and family, but mostly from my friends who are my family. When I began to feel safe enough to start seeing my friends in person instead of virtually, it was such a great relief. I'll never forget getting a call from my friend who said she was coming over. Now on a normal day that would seem well, normal; but in these crazy times I actually thought she was joking. Off to the store I went, probably in search of toilet paper, when I got a call from her saying "Where are you? Sammy's in the window, now where's the wine? I'm in the parking circle and you're not home." So I told her where the key was and where the wine was and that I'd be home in 5. What a joyous day! My first visitor in 3 months or so! We maintained our distance, sat at the table outside and just enjoyed being together after so many stressful months. My house became a bit like Noah's Arc, they all came in 2's, with an occasional 3rd, but no more than that! Food, cooking, eating and wine have always been an important bond with me and my friends, but never more so than during Covid. During Covid they escaped the city and came up to my suburban paradise (never thought I'd say that!) and for a moment all felt right. Of course we wore masks, sat apart and kept outside but we were together and it was amazing.

That takes me to today. We are now 9 months into this craziness and the holidays are here. Just when you thought it was getting better, we even had no more trouble getting toilet paper, it started getting worse. Warnings went up about social gatherings for the holidays and we were told to limit our personal interactions. 2020 just kept getting worse and well I just kept cooking, that was my therapy. The holidays was the time we could all depend on to get together. This year however, as we all know, is different. I decided that I would at least try to keep some of the traditions, even on a small scale, that I had enjoyed about the holidays. And for me that of course meant food. My family was not a very sentimental bunch but there were certain foods that were traditional for the holidays. I wanted to share some of them with you all, as well as some of the traditional foods that meant so much to some of my closest friends.

I decided after a lot of trepidation to go to my best friend's house for Thanksgiving. It was only her immediate family and me. It was also her birthday and I really wanted to be there to celebrate. I decided that I'd bake a cake, but I wanted it to be meaningful so I searched through my mom's recipes. Mom in my opinion made the best cheesecake ever. She used to say it was so rich and dense it would sink to the bottom of your toes! With it being Thanksgiving, I wanted something that spoke of the holiday and I found in her box of index cards, a recipe for a pumpkin cheese cake, woo hoo! Perfect I thought, and I took the recipe and made a few minor changes like adding bourbon, and made my own version -- like a variation on a theme; the picture is below. BUT here is the recipe card for her ORIGINAL cheesecake; I can still see dad in the kitchen, mixing the cream cheese by hand. Check out her introduction to the recipe where she says "who can resist a cheesecake". I love those little intros she wrote on her favorite recipes. I wanted to share her original one because that's the one I remember her always making.