Strawberry Cheese Cake

For all the subsequent disappointments that all of us have had to face from Nain, I must still thank him for introducing me to Strawberry Cheese Cake (SCC from here on). I was 21, Bush was about to start the war in Iraq and I hadn't been introduced to SCC. Good job Nain did there. Another step in the education of the middle class, small town boy.

I have always been partial to sweet things. OK, this includes women too but sweets of the culinary variety came first. It has had its consequences. Nobody has to date urged my mother to feed me better. One of my mother's friends who was eyeing me for her daughter even suggested otherwise. I promptly cleaned her plate of gulab jamuns to contribute my bit towards dissuading her from her dangerously dangerous designs. Very satisfactory day of business that one.

To return to business here, my earliest memories are of going to school on a daily retainer of 4 rasogulle. I absolutely refused to go to school unless promised rasogulle for lunch. Then I got hooked to the whole school business; the lunch time games and Nisad Mehndi and my retainer was reduced to 2 per day and finally stopped all together. I was introduced to injustice and the utility of keeping one's emotion to oneself.

Ah! I was to speak of SCC's. They are made of a thin layer of sliced strawberries laid over a syrupy layer of strawberry derivative laid over a far thicker layer of some knid of cheese laid over a thin layer of almost always disgusting biscuit like substance (thats the only part I don't like and frequntly give it to the person on my right). I wouldn't bet my life on it but I think that defines SCC quite well. For best results, SCC is to be had by cutting thin vertical slices of strawberry layers and cheese layer leaving the biscuit layer undisturbed. Roll the bit around the front of your tongue and you may experience heaven, although having no experience of the heaven experience I cannot vouch for its goodness in the same way as I can vouch for SCC's goodness. There are two restaurents in Delhi which make excellent SCC, one is the very old establishment in CP (where nothing is new) and one is a very small establishment in Gk, Gourmet something. In Ahmedabad, Upper Crust offers the goodie, although of wildly varying quality. Of course, the said SCC tastes much better if the hole it burns is in somebody's else pocket.