Letters from an Aspiring Sous #7

Grapefruit cheesecake

When I was 18 year old, I looked over my shoulder at incoming traffic while merging onto I-95 outside of Boston and rear-ended the car in front of me. When I called my parents, who were on vacation in South Carolina, to tell them that I had totaled my father’s car, which I had taken out that evening instead of my 1995 baby blue, Mercury Sable (Able Sable, I called her), they weren’t thrilled. Apparently, their dinner that night consisted of coconut cake and Scotch as a result. Five years later, they travelled back to Charleston in search of that same coconut cake. So in a sense, I had unwittingly given them the gift of travel-worthy cake; whether it was worth the cost of the car is hard to say — but they still rave about that cake!

This week was my father’s birthday — happy birthday, Dad! While my dad has taught me a great number of lessons over the years (there was that value of a dollar lesson I mentioned a few weeks ago), much of what I’ve learned has been absorbed through osmosis: how to live sustainably by watching him dutifully turn the lights off in my wake growing up; a love of entertainment by sitting through endless seasons of The X files and Star Trek over TV dinners by his side; fiscal responsibility by learning how to sneak candy into the movie theater in an oversized painter’s jacket; and how to fix nearly anything… well, by watching him fix nearly everything. And then there’s all those things that I inherited (regardless of how hard I tried otherwise): a bald head, fiery temper, stubborn attention to detail, and ever-so-slight argumentative bent.

When I first realized that I superficially resembled my father, I would pick up the landline as a kid and the voice on the other end would dive immediately into seemingly intimate conversation. I always struggled to awkwardly interject that I wasn’t who they thought I was. It wasn’t until later in life when aunts and uncles began to relay stories of my father growing up, a hippie-dippy lawyer in Boston of the 70s and 80s, that I realized our similarities extended deeply beyond our exterior facades.

This is all to say that I undoubtedly owe him a great deal, which I will now attempt to pack entirely into this grapefruit cheesecake. It seems only right to attempt my first cake for the occasion (coincidentally, this newsletter’s first dessert). Unfortunately, my Mom has robbed me of the opportunity to recreate the infamous coconut cake. I’m told it’s the first cake she’s ever attempted (and that it turned out surprisingly well). Next off the cab has to be (cheese)cake, a category which also ranks high on Vic’s shortlist of favorite desserts.

This is a NYT Cooking favorite and while it’s a consistent Thanksgiving winner, it also turns out to be a perfect mid-week-pandemic pick-me-up.

Grapefruit cheesecake (for Dad)

• Box of graham crackers (8 ounces)

• 3 tablespoons light brown sugar

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter

• Kosher salt

• Two 8-ounce packages cream cheese (not the whipped kind), at room temperature

• 1 cup full-fat Greek yogurt

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

• 2 eggs

• 3 tablespoons fresh grapefruit juice

• 3 tablespoons finely grated grapefruit zest (hello microplane!)

• Flaky sea salt, for serving

Step 1. Put the graham crackers into a ziplock bag and crush them up with your strong hands. No need to pulverize them into a fine dust — nothing to prove here — they should be about pea-sized.

Step 2. Add sugar, melted butter, a pinch of salt and graham crackers to a bowl and mix until fully incorporated.

Step 3. Put crust mix into a pie dish and using a measuring cup, pack the crust into an even layer across the bottom and up the sides. If you’re finding that the graham crackers are still too large to easily stick together, use the measuring cup to crush them up a bit more and keep packing.

Step 4. Bake crust at 325F for 10-12 minutes, until crust is lightly golden brown on edges (it must be a very subtle browning because it looks no different to me than when I put it in the oven but the consummate expert of pies claims it’s perfect).

Step 5. Combine cream cheese, yogurt and granulated sugar in a stand mixer or food processor and mix until extremely smooth, about a minute or two. Add eggs, juice, zest, a pinch of salt and continue mixing until smooth and creamy, another minute or two (Alex insisted on finishing it off with an immersion blender after I neglected to allow the cream cheese to come to room temp prior to mixing).

Step 6. Pour filling into baked crust and bake for 20-30 minutes until mostly set. The filling should not brown at all — a little jiggle is fine. Turn oven off and open the door a crack for a few minutes prior to transferring to counter to cool completely. Place in refrigerator to chill for at least one hour.

Step 7. Sing happy birthday regardless of whether there is anyone there to celebrate, appreciate that it’s Friday once again, you deserve to treat yourself, and dig in.