74 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
74 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
The Cheesecake Factory Must Die
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<p>Warning: I am about to vent. If splenetic ranting is not your<br />
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thing, back outta here <em>now</em>, for I am seriously pissed off.</p>
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<p><span id="more-257"></span></p>
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<p>I’m four days into an intense seige of work at an<br />
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I-can-tell-you-but-I’d-have-to-kill-you location in suburban New York,<br />
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toiling away at a worthy cause. I’ve been at it for twelve hours, and<br />
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I am truly ready for a decent meal. (Lunch was skimpy Japanese.) My<br />
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colleagues and I send out for a massive order of comestibles from a<br />
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place called the Cheesecake Factory.</p>
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<p>The Cheesecake Factory is a chain joint, but the locals think it’s<br />
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OK. And indeed my “Ton O’Fun” burger is reasonably well made, if of a<br />
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size I normally associate with minor planetary bodies. One of my<br />
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colleagues looks at it and mutters in a nearly reverent tone “Arteries<br />
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be <em>damned</em>!” This fails to disturb me. I consume it with<br />
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glee.</p>
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<p>All goes well until I come to the alleged cheesecake.</p>
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<p>At this point I need to explain that I take my cheesecake pretty<br />
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seriously. Given that I am averse or allergic to most forms of<br />
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cheese, this might strike some as mildly odd — but it’s the<br />
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molds and fermentation products that make me go ick, not the dairy<br />
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proteins or lactose. Cream cheese and I get along just fine, and one<br />
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of my favorite dessertlike things is a good old-fashioned<br />
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cheesecake.</p>
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<p>By “good old-fashioned”, I mean what is sometimes called the New<br />
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York style — immensely rich, made with pure cream cheese. It is<br />
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not “lite” or “fluffy”; indeed, it rejoices in a density only slightly<br />
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less than that of neutronium. Your true cheesecake is flavor-dense as<br />
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well, requiring no silly embellishments like frosting or fruit sauce;<br />
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this cheese stands alone. Though there is sugar in it, sugar should by<br />
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no means dominate in the flavor, which should rather be savory and<br />
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subtle.</p>
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<p>The most important test for a proper traditional cheesecake is<br />
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simple. Stick a fork in it vertically. A metal fork, not a silly<br />
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lightweight plastic one. Now take your hand off the fork. If it<br />
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falls over of its own weight, tearing a messy divot in your dessert,<br />
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the cake is fake. A true cheesecake supports the fork indefinitely<br />
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without so much as a quiver. Another test is the texture. A properly<br />
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made cheesecake shows a distinct grainy texture when cut with a fork,<br />
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slightly moist but not expressing liquid to the surface.</p>
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<p>Color is also significant. Your good cheesecakes are usually pale<br />
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yellow rather than white. The truly superior ones tend to have an<br />
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ever-so-faint, nigh-indetectable bluish tinge. I have studied these<br />
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nuances with attention and care.</p>
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<p>I’m ordering from an entity called “The Cheescake Factory” in the<br />
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New York heartland of the cheesecake. I order the variety labeled in big<br />
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bold letters “Traditional”. And what do I get?</p>
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<p>A vile, revolting, over-sweetened, bland cheese gelatinoid thing so<br />
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lacking in integrity that it slumps on the plate.</p>
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<p>OK, I’m cool with free markets. I’m even cool with free markets<br />
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when they produce lowest-common-denominator results I don’t happen to<br />
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like. It may be that most of the consumers out there adore the gooey<br />
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studge that the soi-disant “Cheesecake Factory” passes off as<br />
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cheesecake. If its crappiness were confined to atrocity-of-the-week<br />
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flavors like “Coffee Heathbar Crunch” or “Craig’s Crazy Carrot Cake<br />
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Cheesecake”, I could sigh in resignation at the wretched tastelessness<br />
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and endure it nevertheless.</p>
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<p>But, dammit, advertising the characterless pile of goo they gave me<br />
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as “traditional” is <em>fraud</em>. And it’s not a harmless fraud, it’s<br />
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an act of subtle but damaging violence against good taste. It<br />
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de-educates the palate; it lowers everybody’s standards until we lose<br />
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the capability to tell the real thing from a puddle of ersatz shite.<br />
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This is how civilization ends, not with a bang but with a jingle.</p>
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<p>Don’t get me wrong. I’d rather live with bad desserts than have<br />
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anybody’s culinary standards, even my own, rammed down peoples’<br />
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throats in the name of ‘civilization’ by some snotty academie of<br />
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iron-fisted connoisseurs. Civilizations can die that way too,<br />
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constipated on their own stuffiness.</p>
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<p>But when some soulless android of a chain restaurant designer<br />
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willfully perverts the meaning of “traditional” so he can sell dreck<br />
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to the ignorant with the illusion that said dreck is just like what his<br />
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Yiddish grandma made, that’s where I reach my limit. The Cheesecake<br />
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Factory must <em>die</em>.</p>
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