Haines His Way

Just saw this and thought I'd like to share it with the folks here. BK, very appropriate considering what you said you were watching in today's notes.

Are you sure it's not 101?

Was it you, DR Ben, who was making the turtle cheesecake last night. Reading those descriptions written last night this morning before I had anything to eat just made my stomach feel like a bottomless pit. I'm sure they are a LOT of trouble to make, but you don't care once it's done because it's sheer ecstacy in the eating. Please let us know how it turned out.

No, Matt, it was I, George, who made the cheesecake!  It wasn't too dificult except that I couldn't use my power tool (hand mixer) because I started making it after midnight.  But it was delicious!  Everyone who had a piece LOVED it.  Actually, I think that people were more impressed with the fact that I made it from scratch at all and that it wasn't just a "regular" cheesecake.

I don't understand what the problem was with the vanilla extract.  If you find you're out, just run downstairs and get some more.

Noel, I don't think that my downstairs neighbor would've been very happy to be woken up at midnight by someone asking to borrow a teaspoon of vanilla.  I used dark chocolate chips instead of semi-sweet, so I don't think that the vanilla was missed at all.  I certainly didn't think that anything was missing.  

What is Queen for a day? I want to be queen for a day!

When you find out, DR Jennifer, you'll realize you really don't want to be.

Who would be satisfied with a day anyway Jay?

And, Ron, we didn't even have to weep copiously to get our stars!  

Speak for yourself, kemosabe!  I've wept, oh, yes! I've wept!  And struggled and toiled and tarried and dillied and dallied.

"Queen for a Day" was a "sort of" prize show -- four (IIRC) ladies vied for a crown, cape and prizes.  They all had sob stories, each more pitiful and pathetic than the previous.

I'm thinking they were mostly legit.  At the end of the show, the host, Jack Bailey (who looked like Walt Disney a little bit) would hold his hand over each contestant's head and the studio audience would applaud.  The "applause meter" determined which lady won the audience's heart each day.

Many days, the lady with the hardest hard-luck story of all DID NOT WIN, and it used to break my tender young heart (I always wore my heart on my sleeve in those days).  I couldn't understand why the audiences would reject some of those pitiful stories.

The winner would usually get something designed to alleviate her hardships -- if she was forever toiling away in the kitchen cooking on a wood stove for lots of folks, she'd get a brand new electric stove; if she was washing clothes with a scrub board for a large family, including several younguns, she'd get a washing machine.  There would also be a day of primping at a Hollywood salon (called "spas" today), and maybe a gift certificate for shopping at an elegant dress show (or through a catalog like Michael C. Fina).

Ah, yes, those were the days.............

Back in the fifties in France --- I KNOW you ALL remember! -- there was a famous radio show called REINE D'UN JOUR which was quite similar to QUEEN FOR A DAY!

That's way informative, right? Can't argue about that!
Nowhere on the Internet one would get such spiffy info!

DON'T GIVE ME NO CRISP CRAP!
I LOVE it!

Tom,

Judging from the size of your new SMILING mug shot, I have the feeling you're auditioning for Tom THUMP!

I never could quite figure out the logic of some of the prizes on Queen for a Day (and, no, Jennifer, you don't want to be Queen for a day).

Here would be this poor woman in a housedress who would tell the studio audience how her husband was in an iron lung, and how she hadn't been able to work since the rock slide ruined their old truck, not to mention that their son had been thrown out of the priesthood (how is that possible?  he didn't drink?).  And what do they give her for prizes, but a year's supply of Ivory Soap and a silver tea service from Michael C. Fina?  What in the hell is that about?

I don't know, TCB...there's been many a gloomy day in my life that would have been brightened enormously by a shiny silver tea service.

I don't know, TCB...there's been many a gloomy day in my life that would have been brightened enormously by a shiny silver tea service.

A great many jokes about queens and tea services went swirling through my mind, but.......... let it go, Tom, just let it go.

Great minds think alike, Jay.

I had forgotten about the robe.   She would still have on the housedress, and they would put this velvet robe around her and try to get the crown to stay in her badly permed hair; and they would say that first they were going to whisk her off to lunch, by limo, to some fancy Beverly Hills restaurant.  And, of course, no one would look twice at the woman sitting and eating lunch by herself in this elegent establishment wearing an old housedress, the robe, and the crown.

Gosh, I hated that show.

Let me see if this link will work if I don't highlight it.

This is the place where I was trying to find a good recipe for potato skins.

http://www.allrecipes.com

This is the site where I found the chocolate turtle cheesecake recipe that I used (except that I had no vanilla).  If anyone is interested, here's the link:

http://cake.allrecipes.com/az/turtlecheesecake.asp

The other (minor) changes were that I used chocolate graham crackers instead of the vanilla wafers, 4 tbs. butter instead of the 6 and I had dark chocolate chocolate chips.  I found another recipe that was almost exactly the same except it said to use 2 tbs. butter for the crust and only two 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, which would make a thinner batter.  Both recipes said to use 2 eggs so the texture of the cakes will be different.  I personally like a thicker cheesecake.

DR George, how did the cheesecake turn out?

And did you have any trouble FedExing me a piece or ten of it.  

Giving the recipe is about as close as I can come to FedExing it to you...as much as I'd love to actually do it.  I really do enjoy baking (especially when it turns out so well), but I don't get (take) very many chances to do it.  If I only do it for myself, then I'd be twice the man I am...and not in a good way.  

Dear Reader Jennifer:

It wasn't a cape.  It was a robe.  With mole tails.  If DRs Ron, TCB and I have not convinced you otherwise, you go for it.

Of course, being a Queen in Perpetuity is an entirely different matter than being Queen for a Day.  If that's what you're interested in, then I can regale you for some time about its many enjoyments.

In OZ we had the same show (we'll buy anything) but it was retitled "Lady For A Day". We did not want to offend HRM QEII. The show was just as bad. The opposition commercial channel has "It Could Be You" which was much the same but marginally better - it rewarded housewifes who went beyond the "call of duty" and did so much for others in their family and community.