Sunday, December 26, 2004
"I was dreaming about cheesecake,"
my mother said when I greeted her in the bathroom this morning. She awoke of her own accord...I was alerted when I heard her heading into the bathroom.
"Would that have been pumpkin cheesecake? With raspberry maple sauce?" I teased.
"I don't remember what kind it was but it was the cheesecake we're going to have tonight."
"Ahhh...then it was the pumpkin cheese cake with raspberry maple sauce!"
"Oh, good! I've been hoping we'd have some more before you freeze it!"
"We'll do the same thing we did yesterday. We'll have a hearty lunch [I'm making the tomato sausage biscuit pie today] then we'll have a Just Desserts dinner."
She would have applauded if she was the type. "You know," she continued, "that cheesecake didn't taste like pumpkin."
Over the four years we've purchased Costco's pumpkin cheesecakes I've noticed that each year they contain less pumpkin. Both the flavor and color have been affected. This year the cheesecake had a just-off-white nutmeg yellow color and no pumpkin flavor. It had much less graham cracker crust, as well, which was an improvement. Not that it wasn't a decent cheesecake, just no longer pumpkin cheesecake. I was surprised my mother noticed this. In years past, as a confirmed smoker, she hasn't noticed the taste subtleties of pumpkin versus less pumpkin. This year she not only noticed she remembered the next day. "Were you disappointed?"
"Goodness no! That raspberry sauce made the cheesecake. Didn't matter whether it was pumpkin or not."
Funny she would mention this. When I purchased the cheesecake this year,it's color was so similar to a regular cheesecake that the idea for making the raspberry maple sauce came to me.
This morning I discovered what's causing the excess water in our backyard. It isn't our house plumbing. The moisture is occurring along the drain that diverts our wash under the backyard through to it's natural bed along the west side of our house. The drain pipe is not straight. Somewhere under our yard it obviously takes an obtuse turn. The leak suggests to me that instead of using bent pipe to construct the diversion, welded pipe was probably used. The joint is probably where it's leaking. As well, our wash still has gently flowing water in it so water is flowing through the pipe. Although I'll check our water bill when it arrives I think the leak is in the wash diversion drain. I don't know if we'll fix it immediately. It's possible the wash drain has been cracked for awhile but we were gone a lot in winter over the last several years (and summer during some of those years) so we wouldn't have noticed. No wonder our back yard has been so prolific! No wonder we had a bumper crop of apples this year despite that they were shrunken and less than hardy from malnourishment.
It's a good, easy day for Mom. We're watching Tracy-Hepburn movies, I'm doing the tomato pie prep, she's sneaking grape tomatoes, bits of chopped green onion and finger dips of the pesto I made to spice the pie. I like that she's been up a lot lately. We're down to no more than 12 hours of sleep.
Good numbers all the way around.
Later.
"Would that have been pumpkin cheesecake? With raspberry maple sauce?" I teased.
"I don't remember what kind it was but it was the cheesecake we're going to have tonight."
"Ahhh...then it was the pumpkin cheese cake with raspberry maple sauce!"
"Oh, good! I've been hoping we'd have some more before you freeze it!"
"We'll do the same thing we did yesterday. We'll have a hearty lunch [I'm making the tomato sausage biscuit pie today] then we'll have a Just Desserts dinner."
She would have applauded if she was the type. "You know," she continued, "that cheesecake didn't taste like pumpkin."
Over the four years we've purchased Costco's pumpkin cheesecakes I've noticed that each year they contain less pumpkin. Both the flavor and color have been affected. This year the cheesecake had a just-off-white nutmeg yellow color and no pumpkin flavor. It had much less graham cracker crust, as well, which was an improvement. Not that it wasn't a decent cheesecake, just no longer pumpkin cheesecake. I was surprised my mother noticed this. In years past, as a confirmed smoker, she hasn't noticed the taste subtleties of pumpkin versus less pumpkin. This year she not only noticed she remembered the next day. "Were you disappointed?"
"Goodness no! That raspberry sauce made the cheesecake. Didn't matter whether it was pumpkin or not."
Funny she would mention this. When I purchased the cheesecake this year,it's color was so similar to a regular cheesecake that the idea for making the raspberry maple sauce came to me.
This morning I discovered what's causing the excess water in our backyard. It isn't our house plumbing. The moisture is occurring along the drain that diverts our wash under the backyard through to it's natural bed along the west side of our house. The drain pipe is not straight. Somewhere under our yard it obviously takes an obtuse turn. The leak suggests to me that instead of using bent pipe to construct the diversion, welded pipe was probably used. The joint is probably where it's leaking. As well, our wash still has gently flowing water in it so water is flowing through the pipe. Although I'll check our water bill when it arrives I think the leak is in the wash diversion drain. I don't know if we'll fix it immediately. It's possible the wash drain has been cracked for awhile but we were gone a lot in winter over the last several years (and summer during some of those years) so we wouldn't have noticed. No wonder our back yard has been so prolific! No wonder we had a bumper crop of apples this year despite that they were shrunken and less than hardy from malnourishment.
It's a good, easy day for Mom. We're watching Tracy-Hepburn movies, I'm doing the tomato pie prep, she's sneaking grape tomatoes, bits of chopped green onion and finger dips of the pesto I made to spice the pie. I like that she's been up a lot lately. We're down to no more than 12 hours of sleep.
Good numbers all the way around.
Later.
