Hello! I hope you won’t hold it against me, but I ate most of the cheesecake already… sorrrrrrrrrry – and I say that with a Canadian accent with the hard ‘o’ – not the American way, which I can only say when I’m not sincere: “I’m so sar-rry.”  I do try not to say it unless I really am being genuine though, it’s one of those things you can say ’til it’s meaningless!

Let’s move on.

I did make the cheesecake and it was tasty in a Stevia-ish way.  Yes, it does taste good, but not ‘to-die-for’ good because you’ll only get that with sugar, since it’s really less about the taste and more the addictiveness of carbs that makes you feel that way.  Think about it, what IS taste, really? – ‘taste buds’ are actually chemosensors that detect certain chemical stimuli in the environment.  These chemosensors go wild over sugar, but it’s so counterproductive to what our bodies need, I have no idea as to why the sensors haven’t evolved more.  I know eggs are really good for me – why can’t eggs be something my taste buds tell me is fantastically exciting? Why!? I hate eating eggs! Though… my good news for you today is that this cheesecake recipe has 8 eggs in it.

Other than the obvious fact that it’s not quite as compelling without sugar, the cheesecake actually turned out super rad.  So much so that I thought that I would include the recipe and the publication I got it from.  It’s from a special edition of ‘Cook’s Illustrated‘, which I highly recommend for the scientifically precise info they supply you with and the perfectionism with which they research their recipes – awesome – you cannot go wrong if you follow their recipes to the ‘T’.  Which is what I did and the cheesecake was perfect! No crack on the top, perfect texture, everything just as they said it would be.  Thank you!!!  I’m actually not that much into cooking, but I miss eating dessert and you can forget about buying a sugar free cheesecake, not gonna happen.  So here I be, in the kitchen.

Here are the pages that I scanned from the issue for you: page 1 and page 2.  Also, if you click on the cheesecake pics I included you can see hugemongous examples of my results. If you’re interested in buying Cook’s Illustrated, it’s published in a magazine format and I bet you could get it at any good newsstand or bookstore, but I get mine as an impulse buy when I stand in line at Whole Foods.

Today I chose my UBC Med school clothing, which is a little ritual my sister and I have: every Fall when she receives the Med school clothing catalogue I pick out which ones I want and then I get it as one of my Christmas gifts from her.  Even though I’m very fashiony and not the sweatshirt/t-shirt type, a lot of the time I’m chillin at home or doing some rigorous physical activities that call for that sort of apparel, so I have usually completely worn them out within the year and require my Fall replenishment.  It makes me happy to wear them because it reminds me of Clairessa and how proud I am of her.    This year I picked out a women’s fitted navy hoodie with the UBC crest and a pair of matching sweatpants that have the elastic around the ankle – so 80′s I know, but those old school sweatpants look kinda cool I think and it’s more flattering on me since most sweatpants are too short for me anyway, they would just be hanging loosely like 5 inches above the ground – not attractive.   Still, I may not leave the house in them… Je deteste looking bummy.

If you’re wondering what happened to my guitar playing, I’ll tell you – I cut my thumb very deeply when I broke an hourglass the other day.  Rather cryptic don’t you think?  I knocked the hourglass, the top half came off and my thumb caught on a shard of the bottom half.   It bled a lot and was very terrible.  My texting, button pushing, and 6th string guitar playing skills are in shambles.  Fiddlesticks.

And now I will answer all your life’s most important and hitherto unanswerable questions:

Q. What is the purpose of life?

A. To spawn more life.  That is the very nature of life – it begets more life.  Go have some kids.  You’ll be glad when you’re old and still relevant to someone.

Q.  Is that a debt collector or a possibly important business contact calling me?

A. It’s a debt collector.  Answer the phone and tell them you’re not your own self and they have reached the wrong number and would they take it off their calling list.

Q. Why can’t I find the right partner?

A. The right partner is a tolerable one.  Anyone you live with will drive you crazy in short order.

Q. Why is it that my hair is dull, dry, unremarkable and I can’t seem to stay thin?

A. Because you’re eating too much sugar.

Q. Why aren’t human babies as cute as animal babies?

A. It’s easy to be objective about animal babies, they obviously aren’t our offspring, so it’s easy to love them for the cute things they are – human babies on the other hand are only really lovable to their own parents and not so much for you as they are competition for your own genetic carriers.

Q. Why are the tastiest foods the worst for me?

A. To maintain the balance of the universe.  Only by keeping us from eating non-stop can existence continue with any kind of order.

I hope that was helpful and now your life seems more organized and less arbitrary.  Animal babies ARE so much cuter aren’t they?  Just looking at my fluffy white standard poodle, Adelle, causes me to hug her and pinch her cheeks and smoosh her foofy head all day long.  Really, it’s hard to get work done.  I challenge any child I have to be that cute.

So, yesterday I went shopping and bought all the ingredients for the New York Cheesecake that I’m going to make tomorrow – yum, num, num.  I researched and found by all accounts the best possible cheesecake recipe in existence.  It calls for 5 packages of cream cheese, 1 lemon, some sour cream, lotsa eggs, a titch of salt, and of course sugar, ew, I’m substituting that with stevia.  I’ll let you know how that turns out.  I’m making a crushed pecan nut crust instead of graham cracker to keep things low carb.  I’m hoping it’s not too time consuming so that I can make and eat my cheesecakes regularly.

Tonight I went to my CSS class and we’ve all decided, the prof included, that this textbook is terrible.  It’s written in such confusing language that what should be a simple task turns into a headache-inducing day long epic drama.  Dude, it’s just CSS.  My PHP class is WAY easier thanks to the power of clear intelligible English in the textbook.  However, I ‘am’ learning and also, I’m getting straight A’s.  Hurray!  Guitar is going well too, my teacher says that I play everything perfectly.  That is very encouraging.  I’m on the right path towards being a legitimate guitar player.  During moments of grandeur I even imagine myself being in a band or at least an ensemble.