Fall is a good time to make Pumpkin things.

Peter and I browsed through the many, tasty recipes before landing on "White Chocolate Hazelnut Pumpkin Cheesecake." I know. It sounded like the most tasty of all the tasty treats. I think Peter's actual response was "Mmmmmmm!" as I read the list of ingredients. This was to be my "I finally got a day off and I want to celebrate by cooking!" treat.

Since I've been home, I have really been on a cooking kick. Maybe it reminds me of the Kamaus, specifically of the Sunday cooking experiments we'd have in Maureen's kitchen. Sometimes my cooking experiments totally bomb (like when I accidentally dropped about 1/2 a cup of curry into the rice...or when I made charcoal out of the cornbread.) My mother likes to label those sorts of incidents as just a part of a Bad Cooking Day, capital letters included.

So the next day I vowed to go to the store so that I could make this delicious autumn treat. Grocery stores have been a source of confusion and stress for me since I have been back from Kenya. (I once talked forcefully to a man passing me in the aisle..."I mean, why in the hay do we need fifteen choices of ketchup? Why can't there be just one? How in the hay am I ever going to get out of here with all of these stupid varieties?!!" He just looked at me and kept walking.) 

I also have a history of meeting weird people in the store. Once a man stopped me to tell me that my shoe was untied...it wasn't untied... This time it was the cashier.

"Whatever you're makin, I'd like some," he said looking at the bag longingly.

"Cheesecake," I replied.

"What time 'll that be done? Please say after 9 o'clock."

Laughing nervously and hoping he wouldn't follow me to my car, "Hmmm...can't say..."

In the directions for the cheesecake, there was this tiny little detail:

"Blend the cream cheese, sugar and flour with an electric mixer on low speed."

Who needs a mixer? I've made plenty of things without a mixer. So I stubbornly went at it, whacking and beating my cream cheese into a frenzy. Ten minutes later I was a mess, and my cream cheese was still in perfect blocks...square corners and all.

I tried a different method. One look at the blender and I threw it all in there. I waited and waited as the blender made lots of loud noises. Peeking in the lid, there stood my three squares of cream cheese. 

New idea: one block at a time! Eventually, it worked.

The next steps were fairly simple, and the filling came together nicely. I opened up the pre-made crust I had picked up from the store and shoop! Dropped it. Crumbly crumbles everywhere. I salvaged what I could and had to make a make shift crust for what I lost...oh it was a mess.

The cheesecake went in the oven and came out of the oven. Peter came home and found it sitting peacefully on the counter.

"You made a square cheesecake?!"

Bad Cooking Day!