CLOVE, CARDAMOM, AND CINNAMON STICKS

Cheesecake

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I am sitting with my drinking glass. In front of me, an afternoon sun is hanging from the turquoise-tarnished sky. My face is reflecting on the water: my life and my words are wringing out of me.

I am thinking about my different ploys of spending a little more time with the kids. I know, being here in the USA, they are going to fly away from the nest as soon as they become eighteen. How much more can I pack myself into that ornate memory-box of their heart? So, I bake the elaborate cheesecakes with the kids from time to time. Well, there is another reason for baking all these cakes. I need to endure the endless dark and cold days of the Wisconsin winter somehow. I believe that nobody can ever dissuade a human being, even in harsh surroundings. He breaks through the soil with his two new leaves, as if that is how life was intended to be. Man is immortal!

I got this cheese-cake recipe from my dear friend Heather. It has three layers. The first one is the base, which is made with ground graham crackers. Just like any other base, it is firm. Then goes the cheese filling. The topmost layer has the sour cream frosting. We decorate the frosting with flowers or fruits. The cake looks magical!

Wisconsin is famous for its almost nine-month long winter. Those unbearable cold months sleep under the blanket of snow. I start getting worried and cannot think about anything beyond my own life; I suffer from cabin fever. I keep staring at my woolen socks and long to dig my bare feet into the grass, clovers, and dandelions. I cry and die for morning dew drops; I want to see some color outside which is not white. Then suddenly summer comes from heaven, in my Wisconsin too. I go out in the open field and discern the songs of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Orioles, Bobolinks, Bluebirds, and Scarlet Tanagers. I spot Sand-hill Cranes, Bald Eagles, Snowy Owls, and tell them, ‘I missed you!’  

Most of the time the temperature of the summer months of Wisconsin are like the winter temperatures of Bangladesh. So many flowers bloom in the summer! Nasturtium, violet, pansy, and roses bloom in the garden. If one doesn’t use any chemicals and uses only organic fertilizer, they can use these pretty flowers to decorate the cheesecake. As I do not have potash, nitrogen or phosphorus from the Chemistry lab in my garden, I can also decorate my cheesecakes with these flowers if I want.

In the later parts of the summer months, apple, pears, and plum trees bend their branches from the weight of the fruits, and almost touch the ground. The garden dazzles with jewel-like blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. I buy kiwi fruits from the market. I tried, but I couldn’t grow kiwi in my garden. It is a long vine and cannot survive the long Wisconsin winter. But I try to snatch as much light as I can from life’s antique, iridescent sky.

In the picture, my kids and I cut the green side of the Kiwi fruit and decorated the cake. There are little black specks on the green. Dark blue blueberries match with those dark spots. So, we covered the white frosting of our cheesecakes with kiwi and blueberries.

But it is true that when we bake cakes, kids never forget to lick the batter from the spoons. Unbaked batter is always tastier than the baked cheesecake.

In the winter months, I cannot even buy organic flowers from the market, so I must buy fruits to decorate the cakes. We just bite our teeth to live through the winter somehow. Life gives us beauty often, but not always. After living here in Wisconsin for twenty-two years, I am trying to understand the coinage, “I am looking forward to.” I, a person from Bangladesh, grew up with eternal sun, sunshine, and flowers. In fact, back home there was so much sun that I needed an umbrella to hide the sun most of the time. Here in Wisconsin, every morning I get up, I look through the windows, and I ask myself, “Is there a sun?” I heard the word ‘no’ for a consecutive seventeen days or more from the sky over here in Wisconsin. Sometimes, I feel that maybe sunshine flows through the veins of a person from a warm-climate, not blood. Twenty-two years is a long time to survive without blood, without sunshine.

So, I had to find my own sun. I learned to wait. Throughout the winter months, I learn the bird-songs without the birds - I have a wonderful book. I try to grow inside when the garden is sleeping outside! Then when summer comes, I go out and find my bird-songs. During the winter months, I decorate cheesecakes with fruits. But in the summer, pansy, violet, nasturtiums, and roses bloom in my garden. This summer I am going to decorate my cheesecake with flowers!

Cheesecake

Cheesecake

Cheesecake

Cheesecake

Cheesecake