Cooking

Why is it so hot in New York this summer? I’m almost starting to think that there might be something to this whole global warming myth! Almost. It’s a good thing I found something cool to keep my mind off the science.

Watermelon sorbet is my current momentary cure for the unending heat wave. The ingredients are simple. There are only three:

• 5 Cups Watermelon Chunks (no seeds please—about half-a-pound of watermelon is a cup)
• 6 Tablespoons of sugar (use more if you like things sweeter)
• 2 Teaspoons of Lime Juice (I used lemon because I had some around)

Just take all of that and throw it in a blender or food processor and let it go until you have a liquid. Put the liquid in the fridge until it’s nice and chilly. Then put the chilled liquid in the ice cream maker.

You don’t have an ice cream maker? That’s ok. I didn’t either until about a week ago when Meg got me one for my birthday. (Thanks, Meg!) But past-Arthur could still have an awesome frozen treat. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, just throw the liquid in the freezer for a while until it turns to slush, then eat it. If it gets too hard, just put the frozen mix back in the food processor for 30 seconds or so.

I ended up making both the ice cream maker version and the slush because I didn’t know, looking at watermelons in the store, how many cups of “chunks” they would give me. It turns out about half-a-pound of watermelon is a cup, as I learned when I bought about 5 pounds, twice the 5 cups I need for my planned sorbet.

Both the ice cream and slush are perfect for a hot day. The watermelon flavor is fresh and crisp; even the bright color is refreshing.

I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m sure that the chilled watermelon liquid will make a rock’n mixer for some white rum! If anyone tries this, definitely post a comment. (Wise: Maybe you can get Kathy on this one with a bottle of Limon.)

Since I was a little kid, before I can even remember, I’ve had cheese cake for my birthday.  According to my mother, the story goes that around my third or fourth birthday (which is in July) she made a cheese cake for President’s Day.  I guess I liked it because I declared that I wanted to have cheese cake for my birthday.  Not believing me, my mom made a  nice chocolate cake.  I’m sure it was great, but that wasn’t going to stop little me from throwing what I hear was an epic tantrum.  So cheese cake became my birthday tradition.

This year, the girlfriend, Meg, offered to make a cheese cake.  We found a recipe in the Red Book (aka The America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook).  The first step starts with cream cheese.  A lot of cream cheese.  I’m pretty sure it was my work here that led us astray.  So apparently the Red Book told me that the two and a half pounds of cream cheese should be cut into nice 1-2 inch cubes before mixing with a hand mixer.  I missed that bit of guidance.  Meg’s old electric hand mixer met not so creamy cream cheese and just couldn’t handle the caloric mass.  After about 60 seconds the right mixer thing (tong? prong? beater?) stopped working and fell out.

Left with only a half a hand mixer things still seemed fine.  Slowly but surely, the dying mixer softened the cream cheese and united it with the rest of the ingredients (eggs, vanilla, etc.).  It actually reminded me a little of some of my favorite force improvisational cooking while cooking with friends back in Minnesota.  Everything got mixed and poured on top of the gram cracker crust in the spring pan and put in the oven.

But when we opened the oven after the necessary time we had a surprise:  cheese cake soufflé!  The cake and popped up about two inches above the pan and was light and spongy to the touch (see picture).  As we double checked the recipe to see what we missed and the cake cooled it sank in, just like a cooling soufflé.  Then it hit me, all of our extra beating from the gimpy mixer must have filled the batter with air.  Though Meg’s pre-war oven might have played some role as well.  Now I just need to see if I can make a real soufflé when I’m trying!

All in all, the cake looked a little strange, but still tasted great.