Fundraiser for the Library?

I've been living in Greene County for almost 10 years now. I never quite know where I am, and now I see why -- whoever drew this county was a little tipsy. Slightly off-kilter. And having the Wright-Patt Air Force Base just confuses things further. Wherever I drive, I'm sure to end up in Beavercreek. When I merge onto I-70 I always remind myself: Dayton is West, Columbus is East.

So I try to do most of my traveling on foot or by bicycle. I stay in town whenever possible.

The other day I went to visit a neighbor. We had some business to contract, but she wanted me to come at 9 rather than 10. When I got there, I realized why.

She had baked a sweet bread to share with me over a cup of coffee.

In some ways, she reminds me of my grandmother -- ready to volunteer when called upon, living in a house filled with memories, and dipping into them occasionally to share.

In this case, the recipe was Lemon Yogurt Coffee Cake. She even had a xerox of the file card to give me when I expressed enthusiasm. (It was delicious -- especially because she toasted the slices in the toaster oven. Made it quite special.)

The best part, though, was the recipe card. Many people wouldn't recognize the homegrown effort of what was many years ago a fundraiser for the Greene County Libraries.

Typed recipe cards, reproduced and strung together with a shoestring. Yep, like a card catalogue. Very old school.

I have some ideas for how to modernize this recipe, but I haven't gotten to it yet -- we baked another Lemon Cheesecake (gluten-free this time) and have been reveling in it.

But the Lemon Yogurt Coffee Cake is next on my list of baked goods. And when I bake it, I'll think about the way libraries used to be. Card catalogues were awesome. In fact, when I visit the public library in St. Petersburg, Russia, I can lose myself in the card catalogue -- sometimes I don't even need to request the books.

Greene County library card catalogues ... no longer in use.

Cheesecake Heaven

Almost twenty years ago, I baked a pumpkin cheesecake for a friend of mine. I followed it up with lemon cheesecake, plain cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake. I'm afraid I was a bit of a cheesecake tease.

He married me -- he says for my cheesecake. And then it all went bad.

My cheesecake-making abilities have ebbed and flowed over the years -- and mostly ebbed. Somehow I have not been able to achieve the height, the lightness, the ecstasy that I aim for. My best rendition in recent years has been the Goat Cheese Mascarpone Cheesecake with Rosemary Rhubarb Sauce (from Grid magazine in Philadelphia), which is totally awesome. (I've even made it with a gluten-free crust for my celiac friend.)

But mostly my cheesecakes have fallen flat. I've taken to cutting them into squares and calling them "cheesecake bars." It's humiliating.

One answer is simply more cream cheese. But that doesn't achieve the lightness I'm looking for. Another is to use a smaller pan -- I've even gotten extreme with a 7" springform pan for ultra-mini-cheesecakes. Which disappear quickly, of course (who can knock the ingredients?), but leave my husband looking around for another cheesecake muse.

And finally -- though I have cursed some of his recipes in recent years -- Mark Bittman came to the rescue yesterday.

A classic recipe -- and it worked!

Lemon Cheesecake with Graham Cracker Crust

About 3 cups of crushed graham crackers
Pulse in Cuisinart with about 10 T. melted butter
(Skip Bittman's 3 T. sugar)

Press into a greased 9" springform pan and preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

4 eggs, separated
3 8 oz. pkgs. of cream cheese
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2/3 c. sugar (reduced from Bittman's 1 cup)
1 T. flour

Beat the egg yolks until light with a mixer or in the Kitchenaid mixer; add cheese, lemon zest and juice, and 2/3 c. sugar and beat until smooth. Pour out into another bowl (if you're using the Kitchenaid) and stir the flour in with a spoon. Wash the bowl and whisk up the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Gently but thoroughly fold them into the cheese mixture (with a rubber spatula). Turn the batter into the pan and place pan in a baking pan large enough to hold it comfortably.

(This can be tricky -- I used a large flat Lodge enameled cast iron covered casserole. See above.)

Add as much warm water as you can to the larger pan -- you're baking the cheesecake in a water bath. (So your springform pan had better not leak -- I have a new one that locks very tightly.) Transfer carefully to the preheated oven and bake until the cake is just set and very lightly browned, about an hour.

Ideally (unless your daughter is baking lemon bars, which mine was), turn the oven off, take the cheesecake out of the water bath and return to the oven for at least 30 minutes to cool in the cooling oven. Then cool on a rack, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until well-chilled before slicing and serving.

I had planned the cake for a meeting I was having at my house, but my clever daughter made me a deal -- she baked lemon bars for the meeting (we never eat them at our house -- too much sugar!) and we kept the cheesecake for the family. It was truly fantastic -- light and creamy and lemony and a little bit tart. Perfect crust -- not too hard to cut into, as they sometimes are after an hour in the oven, not too sweet, since I omitted the extra sugar. Everyone was delighted -- and couldn't wait for breakfast this morning.

Marriage saved. For now.