Cheesecake, it's a hell of a drug

Today B, E & I went to our little plot in the building's garden and laid down a raised bed of soil. This week, we plant garlic for the spring.

Got some cooking done. In the morning, made a batch of spinach linguine from scratch, took apart a few small pumpkins and roasted the flesh, as well as the seeds tossed in peanut oil, sea salt and paprika. The pumpkin will become pumpkin cookies and an ingredient in a pasta dish tomorrow. In the afternoon, I made split-pea soup from the recipe we did early on in c-school. We did it with lamb bacon we cured ourselves, so I replaced that with a beautifully fragrant piece of locally sourced (from a farm down state) slab bacon from Marlow & Daughters, which I had to pop over to to pick up some farro for Wednesday's class. I made one big batch with all the yummy stuff, bacon lardons, bacon fat and chicken stock, and another for B, with, ummm, water and salt. Fneh. I guess it can live in the freezer until the HVS comes over for another snickle conference...

BREAKFAST: 9:45am, toasted pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese and sable, 1 bowl, hunger 4.5

AM SNACK: 11:45am, small wedge of cheesecake, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
I'm determined to make this 8" cheesecake last. E brought it over last night. She told the story of when we were dating, my parents took us to a nice dinner in the East Village, then we popped over to Venerios for cookies and tea. My parents treated us to a small cheesecake to take home (E was living with me at the time.) When we got home, I busted open the cheesecake, but E did not want any. The next day, she went to eat some cheesecake and....it was gone. I had eaten it in one sitting. She was quite shocked, to say the least. That's the kind of thing I did back then. Cheesecake, it's a hell of a drug.

Last night with dinner I had a wedge, ate half of E's wedge, then caught B with the box, spooning cheesecake into her mouth, without thought of portion or control. So this morning while cooking other things, I slice the remaining cake into 5 pieces, ate one (because it looked so damn good), wrapped the remaining four in parchment, placed it on it's cardboard doily and into a plastic freezer bag, and into the locked freezer in the hallway. My challenge:

• Make this cheesecake last all week.
• No more than 1 piece a day.
• Share it with my wife.

Oy.

LUNCH: 4pm, hot dog with mustard, onion and kraut on whole wheat bun, large green salad, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

SNINNER: 6:15pm, puree of pea soup, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Damn this was good. Chicken stock and bacon playing against the rootsy/grassy flavor of the peas, with a few crisp hunks of bacon cubes giving a little texture....