Courtship, Marriage and Cheesecake

Earlier this month, I got out an old community recipe book belonging to my late mother, Phyllis Grieve Rosenberg.  The date on it is 1960 – 61, the year she came to live in Coldwater Michigan and give birth to me.  My newlywed Mother was welcomed into the community by many of the wives of my Dad’s friends and classmates.  Marvin Rosenberg was a home town boy but Mom had been born and raised north of Coldwater along the shores of Lake Michigan in the little town of Montague.  The recipe book is titled “Strictly Personal” and it was created and sold by the women’s auxiliary of the Jaycees, as one of their many fundraising activities.  It contains a plethora of useful information on running a household, including financial and housekeeping tips.  There are pages on which to record birthdays and important contact information, and a selection of recipes from the members.   The Jaycees was an organization near and dear to the hearts of our family.  In the late 1940’s and 1950’s it had been an avenue for both my Dad and his brother Sam, to serve the community and channel their energy and ambitions.  The women in Coldwater were no less ambitious and formed the auxiliary, which they nicknamed “The Jayshees.”

The recipe book contains my Mother’s famous cheesecake recipe and I wanted to make it for my Father’s birthday.  What follows is a recounting of the tale of how that recipe came to symbolize so many things to our family, and why it was one of my Mother’s claims to culinary fame. 

Phyllis 1954

Before she met my dad, ever game for an adventure, Phyllis applied for and was accepted to a program for teaching overseas.  She went to Japan where she was the school librarian at an American middle school on an Army base in Tokyo.  Upon her return, she was staying with my grandmother back in her home town of Montague Michigan, preparing to start a new chapter in San Francisco as a middle school librarian.  She had a lot of friends in the Army because of her experience in Japan.

Marvin ROTC graduation, 1953

Meanwhile, my Dad was a lieutenant in the Army and received orders to report for duty in an artillery unit stationed at Camp Claybanks, along the shores of Lake Michigan just outside of Montague.  While there, Dad became buddies with a guy named Dick Garchie, they were a pair of fun loving bachelors hanging out in this little beach town.  Dick was dating a gal who was friends with my mother, and he arranged for Dad to go on a double date with them and my Mom.  Dad was impressed with my mother’s life experiences and vibrant red hair.  He figured she was out of his league.  But they had some things in common, both were the babies of the family and were trying to look after widowed mothers.  They both longed to settle down and create a peaceful home in which to raise a family.  But life took my mother off to San Francisco, and although they parted friends, neither thought that much more would come of their relationship.

About a year later, after having suffered some heartaches in the romantic and business realms, my Dad decided to get away from it all by visiting some cousins who lived out in California.  His plane got rerouted from Los Angeles for some reason to San Francisco and he found himself waiting in a bus stop in Oakland with time on his hands.  He remembered my mother lived there across the Bay and decided to give her a call.  As fate would have it, my mom happened to be home that day from school.  She came to pick him up in her robin’s egg blue convertible.  While waiting, my dad bought a card in the gift shop with a picture of two dragons looking at each other with a puff of smoke between them; the caption was, “Is there still a spark between us?”  It could not have been more appropriate for the setting.

They started carrying on a long distance relationship, with Dad in Michigan and Mom in California.  They sent reel to reel tapes back and forth, which is what people did back before cheap long distance phone service and online chatting.  Dad would go on standby for freight flights out to California to visit Phyllis.  One of those visits was over the Thanksgiving holiday.  Dad sent Mom a list of foods he wanted on the menu—duck a la orange, wild rice, and cheesecake.   Subsequently, this menu was one we often had for holiday dinners at our house when I was growing up.  Mom had never made cheesecake before that pivotal Thanksgiving, but got the mother of a friend to share her recipe and help her.  Unfortunately, the name of the friend and her mother are lost now that my Mom is gone.  I didn’t commit the names to memory and Mom didn’t write them down.  

Phyllis' apartment in Sausalito overlooking the SF Bay

Apparently the cheesecake made quite the impression, since my parents got engaged soon after, then married in Reno Nevada and set up housekeeping in Coldwater, in a cottage on Rose Lake.  Ever after, this special cheesecake was known as the one that sealed the deal with my Dad’s heart.  But if you knew my mother, you knew that was just a small joke, it was so much more.  Phyllis was a great cook, lovely hostess and talented homemaker, in addition to her professional life as a librarian.  

Phyllis and Marvin, 2012

And she was a great Mom too, who taught me to cook, inspired my interest in creating and serving fine and healthy foods and those that could be home grown.  Mom always told me, as her mother told her, “If you can read you can cook.”  I am so happy that in addition to the memories, I have many of her cookbooks and recipe clippings from which to draw inspiration.

So here it is - the famous cheesecake recipe.  Good for warming hearts and minds and remembering an angel in Heaven.

Notes/Changes from printed directions: USE A FULL 1.5 lbs cream cheese, which is the equivalent of three 8 oz. bricks.  Best results in a 10 inch springform pan. Do not use waxed paper to line pan.  Well greased parchment paper may be substituted but is not necessary.  Make sure to grease the sides of the pan if not using parchment paper.  Here's a link to similar cheesecake recipe with photo instructions.  https://cookiesandcups.com/perfect-cheesecake/