It seems that every region of the globe has embraced cheesecake in one form or another, adapting the recipe to local tastes and adding local flavors. In America, cheesecakes are typically made with a cream cheese base, but even here we vary the recipe by region. New York cheesecake is famous for its ultra-smooth texture and decadently rich flavor– achieved by adding extra egg yolks and a hint of lemon – and you’ll find other regional variations from Chicago-style to Pennsylvania Dutch. Many American bakers add sour cream for a creamy cheesecake that can be frozen without compromising taste or texture.

Italian cheesecakes generally use ricotta cheese, which makes them drier than their American cousins. The French prefer Neufchatel cheese and often add gelatin for a light and airy consistency. The Greeks might use ricotta, mizithra, farmers, feta, Swiss, or a combination of cheeses, while the Germans typically rely on cottage cheese or quark. The Japanese incorporate cornstarch and whipped egg whites into their cheesecakes for a more custard-like effect, and I’ve even heard you can find cheesecake in vending machines in Japan. Now why didn’t I think of that?

You’d be hard pressed to find a culture that doesn’t – or didn’t – enjoy a good cheesecake. Culinary historians cite cheesecake recipes dating back to the first century AD, with additional recipes floating around from the centuries that followed. You’ll find every imaginable flavor and topping in today’s cheesecake recipes, but the basic premise, baking creamy cheese with wheat and sweetener, has stood the test of time.

And let’s not forget savory cheesecakes featuring blue cheese, garlic, seafood, chiles, and other tasty cheese-friendly flavors, or vegan versions of cheesecake-like desserts made with tofu. With so many varieties, you’d need a lot more than a “Cheesecake of the Month” club to sample them all!

Clearly, cheesecake has lived long and continues to prosper. Whether it’s a birthday cake, anniversary treat, or just a “Make-Everyday-Special” indulgence, cheesecake is an ancient delight that will never go out of style!

Let’s face it, another book or CD packed in a cardboard box, another nondescript gift card, even another basket of flowers just isn’t going to cut it. The gift should be unique, the card personal, and the experience unforgettable. The good news is, many online retailers understand how important it is to add those personal touches, making it easy for you to send an impressive, memorable gift without the hassles of traditional shopping.

With that in mind, let’s explore some avenues to e-gift success:

Show What You Know: If the recipient of your gift is a collector or enjoys a particular hobby, you might want to choose a gift along those lines. If you’re not sure what they already have, take a few minutes to email a relative or close friend who can offer suggestions or guide you to an online wish list. Finding that perfect accessory or collectible shows you chose the gift especially for them.

Send An Experience: If your recipient isn’t an avid collector or enthusiastic hobbyist – or if you know that every gift they receive pertains to that same hobby or collection! – it’s common to fall back on old standards like flowers or a gift card. It’s so common, in fact, those “go to” gifts have lost their ability to dazzle. A new breed of “go to” gifts offering more pizzazz and universal appeal can be found in the increasingly popular realm of gourmet foods and gift baskets. Whether it’s wine or chocolate, cheese or cheesecake – or even a “low carb” or “no sugar added” version of your favorite gourmet treat – when you send a gift of fine indulgent foods, you send an experience your friends, loved ones or business associates will enjoy sharing with the entire household or office.

Keep On Giving: If you really want to make an impression, send a “serial gift” by enrolling the recipient in a “cheesecake of the month club,” “wine of the month club,” “fruit of the month club,” or another “of the month club” experience. They’ll be reminded of your generosity and thoughtfulness every time they receive another delicious installment.

Find the Right Words: Once you’ve chosen the perfect gift, it’s time for the perfect card. You want your message to be meaningful and memorable, but if you’re like most people, you often find yourself at a loss for the perfect words. Don’t be afraid to use a quote from the selection available on many gift giving sites. From the humorous birthday quip to the sentimental anniversary thought to the heartfelt message of condolence, sometimes someone else’s words can convey your feelings even more powerfully than you can.

Let Your Voice Be Heard: What could be more personal than adding your own voice to your gift greeting? Some online retailers offer the option of recording a short sound byte that plays every time your recipient opens your gift card. Imagine Grandma’s delight when she hears Junior’s voice on the card accompanying her gourmet birthday cake! You can sing, talk or send a sultry message of love! The card becomes an added gift, a keepsake to cherish long after a traditional card would be thrown away.

Stick With a Winner: When you find one or two online retailers you can count on for a great selection and personal touches, stick with them. Once you set up an account and become familiar with their inventories and options for personalizing gifts, you can send the perfect gift for any occasion in virtually no time at all. Of course, your recipients don’t have to know that! All they’ll know is that you always send unique, memorable gifts with that truly personal touch.

When she presented herself at a hospital’s emergency room and mentioned chest pains, she was whisked through triage and hooked up for an EKG and wheeled to a bed within a curtained space where her forearm was prepared to receive an IV, should that become necessary. Within seconds, she was breathing oxygen and hooked to a heart monitor. Vials of blood were rushed to the lab. One by one, attendants, nurses, interns, doctors, even a hospitality representative, parted a curtain enough to enter into her allotted space. Her medical history was taken. Everyone with a stethoscope listened to her chest, her back, even her ankles. Everyone said, “Describe what happened” and everyone asked, “Are you having any pain?” She wasn’t and she was beginning to feel like a ninny. The medical consensus was to admit her, keep her overnight.

Once she was ensconced in a room in the cardiac wing, she asked that her assistant whom she had abandoned in the waiting room be allowed to come to her bedside. When the unctuous Randolph strode the wide hallway, resplendent in velvet slacks and a sharkskin jacket festooned with a wild print on a silk scarf, eyebrows shot up, jaws dropped, eyes blinked. Deirdre rattled off whispered directions to Randolph who nodded understanding, swiveled and marched out into the hallway, vowing, “I shall return!” and then he immediately destroyed the calculated MacArthur illusion with a naughty wink. An orderly standing near a supply closet tingled all over.

Within an hour, delivery trucks snarled the parking apron that flanked the main entrance. Led by Randolph, a flotilla of off-loaders carrying large domed trays and towers of shiny lime green boxes emblazoned with a golden D overwhelmed the staff’s protests that patients were restricted to only two visitors. “My dear woman,” Randolph said, “we’re calling on every patient on the floor!” Deirdre bored almost to tears by what seemed to have been the heart attack that never was, clapped her hands with glee and decreed that her famous cheesecake tarts garnished with fruit or syrups or whipped cream were to be presented to everyone in the cardiac wing – patients, staff, visitors – and that everyone was also to receive a lasting souvenir of her visit – one of her unrestrained prints woven into oversized square scarves. Nurses at the hub of the floor where they monitored the vital signs of certain patients were alarmed by a succession of rapid beeps but which subsided quickly, replaced by the steady rhythms of relaxed and healing hearts, made happy by colorful shimmering scarves and the pleasure of digesting delectable cheesecakes as smooth as the silky scarves.

– Scarlet O’Cheesecake

She was a dreamer who did as she was told, who never made waves. She was a loyal friend to any who fell into her presence but she was not gregarious. She didn’t sleepwalk through school; she drifted. She wished she had goals but ambition was not indigenous to her character. Her parents loved her but made no demands on her. “There’s no hurry,” was their attitude. “Aideen will discover her passion in her own good time.” Secretly they were relieved that so far, passion had not blossomed into a romance. In the meantime, they savored her baking skills, especially the cheesecakes she surprised them with two or three times a month.

After high school when most of her classmates went away to college, Aideen tried a succession of jobs as receptionist, waitress, mother’s helper, sales clerk, nanny, short-order cook, dog-walker, personal shopper. She was dependable, competent, pleasant, and all her employers hated to see her go. “Come back, any time,” they said. “You’ve always got a job here!”

Then it happened. At about the same time her friends were receiving their college degrees, her interest was piqued by a talk show guest who waxed poetic about the benefits of winning a lottery. The winner rattled off the obvious advantages of buying a home for mom, travel, new car, but the most appreciated perk was the luxury of weekly massages. Aideen spent hours at her computer researching massage. She contacted area schools who offered accredited courses. While reading through their literature, one in particular appealed to her. She enrolled. Almost a year later, a fully licensed massage therapist, she was hired by a local gym where she had a massage table in a secluded room, low light, oils, scented candles, music of waterfalls, ocean waves, birdsong as in effect, an oasis. When the appointment book was clear, she wheeled her portable chair to the lobby and offered 15-minute shoulder massages. Thus word of her “healing touch” spread. Repeat customers included chiropractors, one in particular, tall and gangly, who after five years in practice, had attracted a large patient base. When he asked her how she happened to become a therapist, he saw a pleasant young woman become a beauty. She glowed as she spoke of the caring tenderness she felt for each body she touched, regardless of their appearance, because, “I feel a connection with their inner being. I can’t explain it,” she said. “I want to help them.” By showing Aideen how to reconfigure her hours at the gym, she agreed to join his practice six hours a week.

Do you think you know where this story is going? You’re wrong if you think she fell in love with the chiropractor. Her heart was captured by the owner of the gym, a burly fellow with a tension catchall near his right shoulder that she worked on, repeatedly, until it disappeared at about the same time he realized that Aideen had a way of making him feel good all over. When she brought in one of her home baked cheesecakes, he was a goner. Of course he married her! And he had a special chilled show case made to fit in with the other show cases at the lobby’s welcoming counter. There, along with power snacks and drinks, sweat bands, step monitors, t-shirts and sweat pants, is a small case that features Aideen’s cheesecakes, sold by the slice whose main ingredient is love.

Scarlet O’Cheesecake

The custom at family holiday feasts was to pass a hat just before dessert was served in which had been placed slips of paper, enough for everyone to choose one. There were two that read, “hors d’oeuvres,” but all the rest were single listings – “meat,” “salad,” “two vegetables,” “bread/rolls,” “wine,” “beverage,” “dessert.,” and “ice cream.” Within this family, ice cream was considered its own food group. Whoever drew what from the hat was responsible for bringing that dish to the next family feast. Theoretically, no one was supposed to tell anyone what they were bringing. There were also assignments for KP and blank pieces of paper so that occasionally, some could gloat about how relaxing it was to be a guest.

Aunt Myrtie’s paper said, “Dessert.” For years she had dodged this bullet. But now, here it was, in black and white – her nemesis. Blood drained from her face. She brought her wine glass to her lips and drained it. She had three months to come up with a palatable dessert. She downed another glass of wine.

Every week, she experimented. That is, she leafed through cookbooks and followed recipes. But no matter how explicit the directions, regardless of how meticulously she measured, how she stirred if it said stir, or folded, or beat, or melted or chilled, her efforts never set, fell apart, or hardened like a rock. She exhausted the possibilities in her cookbooks and turned to the Internet. What a plethora of possibilities! Her adventurous spirit revived. But the results? Disaster followed catastrophe. Her spirit sagged.

“There is no joy in cooking!” she cried.

By six days before the holiday feast, she was desperate. She trolled the ‘net. And then, because she was a good woman, the dessert gods smiled on her, steering her to a site that offered not recipes to ruin but a solution to her deficiency in the dessert department: ready-to-eat cheesecake, shipped over night to your home, packaged so that by the time it was to be served, it was at the perfect temperature. She would pull the same trick she had as a bride: she would slide the cheesecake like she had slid apple pie into one of her own glass baking dishes and no one would be the wiser. She ordered one cheesecake as an experiment. She managed to transfer it into a glass baking dish but not even tons of raspberries could camouflage what appeared to be earthquake damage.

The dessert gods smiled on her again. “A ha!” she exclaimed. She ordered three more cheesecakes. She visited the florist and came home with a dozen irises.

Before she went to bed that night, she dug out large glass platters she hadn’t used in years, washed them carefully in hot soapy water, rinsed them well, and dried them with tea towels, rubbing until the glass glistened, and set them on the dining room table along with a short stack of small doilies. She prepared four glass bowls and a small pitcher, set them on the table, and went to bed. The irises stood tall in a vase. She was confident the cheesecakes would arrive by mid-afternoon.

And they did – classic New York style cheesecakes, pristine in a foam container protected within a corrugated box. Did she attempt to transfer them to a glass container? Aunt Myrtie may not have been a natural baker but she was not stupid! She cut the cheesecakes into individual serving pieces, placing each one on a doily, and then onto the platters. She placed iris blossoms among the cheesecakes, elevating the platters to works of art. In the bowls were garnishes – raspberries, strawberries, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and a small pitcher of a coffee liqueur. Aunt Myrtie refilled the whipped cream bowl once and the pitcher seven times. If she picked “dessert” from the hat again, she knew exactly what she would serve: brownies re-named “crumble delight” served with coffee liqueur and whipped cream.

– Scarlet O’Cheesecake

At the Senior Prom, when the chaperones decided the dancing had become too dangerously romantic, they insisted everyone change partners, “Now!” Fate had positioned Jeff and his date next to Susanna and her date. Suddenly Jeff’s arms were around a creature with gossamer wings who floated across the dance floor, who swayed with him, who seemed to become one with him and the music. The chaperones signaled the orchestra to stop. “Change partners!” the chaperones shouted. Jeff never slowed down. He whirled Susanna around the room. She tilted back her head and looked at the person to whom she had yielded control. “Why,” she marveled, “it’s Jeff from the First Grade!” The orchestra resumed playing. The chaperones shrugged. Jeff danced as if he had channeled Fred Astaire. When the music ended, Susanna said, “Hi, Jeff.” They kissed. The chaperones were apoplectic. Jeff returned Susanna to her partner, bowed, and said, “Thank you, Susanna..” Then he turned, found his date, swept her into his arms, and created the evening’s second belle of the ball.

Jeff heard that Susanna was engaged two or three times while in college and after graduating, she landed an entry level job in retail merchandising. Jeff went directly into graduate school, earned an MBA, and was hired by a major airline. He was dating Amy and had fallen in like with her but the ghost of Susanna, the possibility of her, blocked him from falling in love.

Seven years after the Senior Prom, he swung into a gas station and pulled into the self-serve line behind a blue convertible where a knockout in a pale blue sweater and white slacks stood pumping her own gas. Jeff said, “Susanna, hello.”

Within seconds she exclaimed, “Jeff! My favorite dancing partner!”

His innards lurched.

They spent the next two hours in a deli where they ordered cheesecake and coffee. “Ummm,” Susannah said, “This cheesecake is delicious,” and she took her second bite. They talked about their jobs (Susannah was a buyer; Jeff was a division comptroller), their interests (Susanna’s was fashion; Jeff’s ran the gamut from A (art) to Y (yoga). “This is the best cheesecake I ever tasted,” Susanna said, after eating less than half during the previous hour, one small nibble at a time. Into the second hour and third coffee refill, Jeff’s interest in Susanna was replaced by his fascination with how long she took to finish eating one piece of cheesecake. He marveled that anyone deliberately created ultra-small pieces and then ate a mere morsel so slowly and talked about only one subject – clothes. Back at their cars, Susannah and Jeff exchanged cards. “I’d love to hear from you,” she cooed.

“All these years,” Jeff thought, “I was smitten by Susannah’s beauty because what else was there? Not much!” He stifled a laugh. “I’m glad I saw you, Susannah.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to run,” he said, and so avoided lying that he’d call her soon because now there was only one girl he wanted to call. He sped away and touched speed dial on his cell phone.

“Hello? Amy?”

– Scarlet O’Cheesecake

“And she wasn’t our cat!” the other aunt chimed in. “She belonged to the that nasty neat neighbor who didn’t want kittens messing up her house so she got her little boy to sneak their pregnant cat into our back shed.”

Gram’s bachelor son Uncle Ned said, “Those were six of the prettiest kittens I ever saw. Double paws.”

The applause faded and then stopped the moment the diners picked up their dessert forks. Sarah took a bite of cheesecake and would have swooned with pleasure if she hadn’t arrived with an agenda. Her daughter’s new in-laws, the Brandons, had an annoying habit of name-dropping, primarily their illustrious, albeit deceased relatives. “Gram,” she began, “Wasn’t Horace Farnsworth a relative of ours?”

Without missing a beat, Gram verified that indeed Horace Farnsworth was a relative, a second cousin. “Whatever made you think of him?”

“My daughter has married into a family that is always bragging about their relatives. They were educators and politicians and famous trial attorneys. I’m looking for relatives whose accomplishments I can drop into conversations. So, about Horace Farnsworth. Didn’t he become governor?”

Gram laughed. “He sure did! And later he was arrested for rum-running and sent to jail.”

The aunts chimed in. “His wife left him. Two of his children moved out of state. One son was so embarrassed that he had his name changed. But the youngest boy who hero-worshiped his father became a bank president and ended up embezzling thousands.”

Uncle Ned said, “That was first-rate rum.”

Sarah asked, “Wasn’t there a Grace somebody, a writer? Didn’t she write a novel that became a bestseller?”

“Oh yes, Grace. Another cousin,”Gram said. “I remember reading reviews of her books in the Sunday papers.”

An aunt said, “She gave lectures all over the country. She was intelligent, witty, broad-minded.”

“But she wasn’t that smart when she chose a lover,” Gram said. “They visited us once. He could charm the birds out of the trees. Remember the savings and loan scandal? Grace bailed him out and then kicked him out. Then she wrote a tell-all book and went from being famous to infamous. She fled to Paraguay.”

“Her picture was on the cover of one of the weekly magazines, I don’t remember which one, maybe Life,” one aunt said.

“It was Look,” the other aunt said.

Sarah laughed. “Well, so much for impressing the Brandons!”

Uncle Ned said he would enjoy another slice of cheesecake. “Just a sliver,” he added, and then he turned to Sarah. “Keep this in mind. If you trace our family tree back far enough, you’ll find our ancestors either hanging by their necks or by their tails. And that goes for the Brandons too.”

– Scarlet O’Cheesecake

This year there would be no special Valentine for Francine. She who had enjoyed the attention of many admirers was admirer-less. “Like socks,” she thought. “They’ve disappeared, just like my socks. A matched pair goes into the wash but only one makes it through the dryer.” She was relieved when some swains wandered away and sometimes sad when others did; but when the winnowing out left no potential suitor in the wings, she was philosophical – all through January.

But on the first day of February, her mood plunged from philosophical to deep funk.

She stood in front of a mirror and stared at herself. Staring back was an attractive woman of average height and weight who at age 32 was accomplished and confident. She forced a smile. Even a faked smile gave a lift to her image, and she changed from pleasing to look at to someone who turned heads. She laughed and struck a haughty pose. She tossed her hair. She flirted with herself. She stopped smiling and spoke to the mirror.

“If I, adorable me is feeling like I’m chopped liver, how may others feel who life passes by every week, month after month?” She scolded herself. “Francine, you should be ashamed!” And in that moment, a plan was born. She made a phone call and went grocery shopping. She told her boss that due to a morning appointment on the 14^th, she wouldn’t be in until after lunch.

She spent the weekend in the kitchen. She leafed through cookbooks. She rifled through the newspaper recipes she had clipped and dropped in a folder. She made soup by the quart. Dozens of muffins. Bowls of salads. Deviled dozens of eggs (and opened the windows). Vegetable casseroles and macaroni and cheese. Cookies. And her specialty, mini cheese cakes. In the evenings, she sat at the kitchen table and created Valentines out of construction paper, doilies, glitter and ribbons.

On the morning of Valentine’s Day, she loaded her van with the food and the Valentines. She stopped at the florist’s and wrestled a bouquet of heart-shaped balloons into the back of the van. At the homeless shelter, she parked outside the service entrance. The kitchen crew helped with the unloading and warming the soups and casseroles. The director was astounded at the quantity of food Francine had prepared. When the residents trooped in for lunch, the buffet table was flanked at one end by two tureens of steaming soup and at the far end, the platters of deserts. In between were the deviled eggs, salads, and casseroles. At each table there was a Valentine heart balloon and at every place setting, a Valentine.

The director said, “It was wonderful of you to do this, so thoughtful.”

Francine said, “This was a selfish act. I did it for me.”

She collected her pots and pans, swung through a drive-through for a hamburger, and was at her desk by one o’clock.

Three days later, she received a large envelope that contained letters on scraps of paper written by many of the shelter’s residents, thanking her for the delicious food, but mostly thanking her for remembering them on Valentine’s Day. One said that she hadn’t had a Valentine since she was a little girl; one from a man said it was the first Valentine of his life. Another from a woman said that she ate two cheesecake tarts because she couldn’t believe the first one could have tasted so good. “But it did!” she said. “The second one was proof!”

Francine spread the messages on her bed. She counted 19. A few writers had drawn lopsided hearts on their notes. “These are the most Valentines I ever received at one time!” she thought. She smiled. And then because she felt so warmed inside, she cried.

– Scarlet O’Cheesecake

Pudgy Paula and Chunky Charlene were friends, not exactly bosom buddies but they were endowed with the obvious qualifications and one day, excited because their English term papers received the highest marks, they hugged. The class clown who considered himself a wag could not stifle the urge to blurt out his observation, “Look! Bosom buddies!” Of course, Pudgy Paula and Chunky Charlene blushed, squealed, and ran in opposite directions. They were of a certain age that bursts easily into tears. They were not quite 16.

But the bosom buddies jibe became the catalyst for Pudgy Paula and Chunky Charlene to lose weight. Because diets are boring to follow and tiring to hear about (especially the banning of cheesecake in all its succulent variations), I’ll cut to the chase. After four months of calisthenics and counting calories, Chunky Charlene was no more. From out of a cocoon of baby fat, she emerged a butterfly – lithe and curvy, a poster teen brimming confidence. She glided and whirled. She tossed her hair. She drove the boys nuts.

Pudgy Paula came down one size, all over. She had a waist but not by much. Her body was well-toned but it didn’t stimulate boys’ fantasies because she did not fit their idealized image of a sexy girl. Paula was not the itsy-bitsy bikini type. She was a solid citizen, a dependable friend, and not a happy camper. When she walked, she didn’t skim over the earth; she plodded. Paula was down in the dumps.

She sank lower when she tried out for the softball team. Charlene made the cut because the coach could detect a latent talent capable of development. But Paula was another story. She couldn’t hit. She couldn’t throw. She couldn’t catch. She couldn’t run. The coach appointed her assistant manager and made her responsible for the oversized cooler and its contents – an energy drink of debatable nutritional distinction. Paula lavished attention on the jug, keeping it stocked and chilled, and spotlessly hygienic. But her shoulders sagged and her eyes were lusterless.

At the second game, an error gave birth to a makeover of extreme distinction. A solid hit into foul territory clipped the manager’s left knee and put her on the ground, writhing with pain. Word came back from the ER that following surgery, she would be on crutches for the rest of the season. The coach promoted Paula to manager. At first she was tentative. The makeover began when the coach handed her a clipboard. Paula accepted it; holding it by one corner, letting it hang down beside her leg. The coach asked her to make a note about sending flowers to the injured girl. Paula brought the clipboard up to where she could write on it, made the notation, and instead of letting the clipboard return to its ignominious lower level, she embraced the clipboard. So help me, it became part of her. I could see self-confidence coursing through her body. She stood taller. Her shoulders squared. Her eyes focused. She not only had a new job, everything about her body language proclaimed that she had a mission and, by golly, she would be the finest manager the softball team had ever had.

I said to Best Friend, “Chunky-no-more Paula has found her raison d’! Get a load of the clipboard dynamics!”

“Yeah,” she said. “Authority speaks!”

Throughout games and practices, she gripped the clipboard. Sometimes, the clipboard seemed to be attached to her. She consulted the forms it held; she made entries; she made notes. She was efficient. She was happy. Before our eyes, Paula had become a different girl.

She celebrated the intoxicating elation of feeling she belonged by stopping at a bakery where she chose a slice of key lime cheesecake, its filling the authentic sallow, pale yellow hue of real key limes, and whose flavor was just sweet enough not to be too sour, and sour enough not to be too sweet. She savored every bite.

“Paula,” I overheard Charlene say, “aren’t you afraid you’ll gain back the weight you lost?”

“Nope.”

And she never did. I’ve known her for 30 years; Best Friend and I were her bridal attendants. Charlene was her maid of honor. And except when she was pregnant, Paula’s weight never has fluctuated more than two or three pounds. She eats whatever she likes, and that includes cheesecake. She’s a handsome, confident, purposeful woman, thanks to a makeover that began from within.

– Scarlet O’Cheesecake

The lady who put that ring on his finger was gone; she slipped away – two years ago? Or was it last month? Gerry couldn’t remember. But he remembered her. Bernice. Bernie Baby. Beautiful Bernice. Heads turned when she walked by. His had snapped. He never tired of looking at her. When her body said she was an old woman, her eyes said otherwise. Those dark chocolate eyes with the golden flecks, the eyes he swam into, the eyes that spoke to him when the tubes made it impossible for her to communicate, the eyes that begged for peace, the eyes that for all their life together repeatedly declared, “I love you, Gerry. I love you.”

His new home was a studio apartment, the living area large enough to swing a couple of cats. Compared to what he was used to, the bedroom made him think of a monk’s cell, and he chuckled because as best as he could remember, he’d never seen a monk’s cell, and before he met Bernice, he’d never conducted himself like a monk. Being faithful to Bernice was easy. He honored his promise to keep himself only unto her as long as they both lived. Now his life was divided into two compartments – With Bernice and Without Bernice. At his new home, one of the many women residents he met was a saucy little widow with faded red hair. After cradling Bernice for all those years, especially after she became skin and bones, the little widow’s plump figure was rather invigorating. His daughter who visited often enough to suspect one of her father’s relationships was not platonic, asked him what it was like to bed a woman other than his wife, someone he wasn’t in love with. “Dad,” she said, “you’re having recreational sex with this widow.”

Gerry looked her square in the face and said, “Daughter, at my age, any sex is recreational!”

To Gerry, the apartment’s most attractive feature was a utilitarian galley kitchen, with a pass-through to a dining counter. Here Gerry could putter and experiment and forget he was a resident in one of those old folks places, designed to accommodate the body’s changing needs, decorated with artificial cheerfulness, a failed attempt to deny the approach of the inevitable.

Within a week, Gerry’s apartment became the most visited. Almost every day he baked – muffins for the morning, or for afternoon a plate of homemade cookies, brownies, or tarts. During the evenings, visitors had a choice of teas and sweets and always lively conversation, sometimes a game of cards, or reading aloud from one of Gerry’s many books. He still had a driver’s license and some days two or three rode with him to a mall or a restaurant or to the movies and occasionally a play. In appreciation of his hospitality, his new friends brought gifts – hanging plants, original artwork, a handmade throw, decorative pillows, and small appliances and other cooking aids that included a growing collection of baking pans and utensils. The apartment’s antiseptic look vanished.

Most excursions included stops at bookstores where after leafing through several cookbooks, Gerry usually purchased one or two. “One of these days” he exclaimed, “I’ll get it right! I’ll serve you the best damn cheesecake you’ve ever tasted!” Interest in his cheesecake experiments mounted. “I think I’ve almost got it!” he said. But then he reported that the filling was too firm or the filling was too soft or the flavor was off or the crust was too short or not short enough.

His friends tried to bolster his spirits. “Too soft? Then serve it with a spoon!”

Finally, he admitted defeat. His friends commiserated with him. “But,” he said, “stop in this evening because I guarantee you will not be disappointed.”

And they weren’t. A tray of small, individual cheesecakes in assorted flavors melted away any hints of senility or peevishness. “This is perfect!” everyone exclaimed. “You rascal! You’ve done it! Congratulations!”

“I can’t claim credit for this,” Gerry said. “I ordered it online yesterday from a website in Texas and FedEx delivered it this afternoon.”

His friends paid no attention. They didn’t care who made the mini cheesecakes or where they came from. They were too busy sampling each other’s choices.

“Oh, you’ve got to taste this one! It’s positively divine!”

From opposite sides of the room, Gerry and the little widow with the faded red hair smiled a silent signal that both understood. They thought no one noticed when they slipped out the door. That’s because they couldn’t see their friends’ smiles and winks.

– Scarlet O’Cheesecake