“Just beat it, beat it, no one wants to be defeated.”  That’s what was running through my head as I stood, wooden spoon in hand. The directions said that the four packs of cream cheese and the sugar needed to be beaten until “light and smooth.”

Having never made a cheesecake with a wooden spoon before, I’m daunted by the task. Afraid I’m not up to it. But if everyone for the last 1,723 years (before electric mixers) has done this by hand, then so can I!

I think…

My beloved cheesescake is believed to have originated in Ancient Greece, the first recipes and ingredients were recorded as early as 230 A.D.  It was introduced to Great Britain and Western Europe around 1,000 A.D. by the conquering Romans. Then the recipe spread throughout England, Scandinavia, and Northwestern Europe.

A 1545 cookbook which included accounts of domestic life and cookery during Tudor days has a recipe for a “tarte of chese.” About that same time, Neufchâtel cheese was “officially born” in the ledgers of the Saint-Amen Abbey of Rouen, in Neufchâtel-en-Bray, France.

So I’m humming “beat it” as I attack the two pounds of Neufchâtel in the bowl. My sister called and we chatted on speaker-phone as I kept stirring. “I’m so sorry you have to make your own birthday cake.”  “Cheesecake,”  I corrected her, and then told her it wasn’t for me. “You’re doing all of that work for someone else???”  Well, now that she put it that way….

It’s for our aesthetician at work, she has been reminding me of how much she’d love one of my cheesecakes for her birthday. She said she’d share, so everyone gets to have some. There are six of us Scorpios with birthdays within 9 days of each other!

And this NY-style cheesecake is just like a Scorpio – rich, complex, sexy, and absolutely wonderful! And I should know, I’ve enjoyed the company of many in my life…both Scorpios and cheesecakes.

Happy Birthday Dear Scorpios!

XO Donna