The highs and lows of a brief encounter with Banoffe Cheesecake

Monday night is not only Zumba night, it is also staff meeting night. Week after week whoever is leading the meeting over-runs and I sit there thinking ‘have you no home to go to?’ I can’t remember the last time one finished at 4.30pm. The most common end time is between 4.45 and 4.55pm. Well it was my turn to lead this week and I took the opportunity to get my revenge on all those who have made me late home. I kept the meeting going and ha, they all had to sit there until ten past five! I wonder how they liked it. The side effect of my action was that I was home even later than usual and the turnaround time between arrival home and departure for Zumba was so short I decided that the exertion it would take to get to Zumba on time was more than I could muster so I had to give it a miss tonight. Revenge is not so sweet after all.

Banoffee Cheesecake on the other hand is very sweet. I don’t often buy puddings but every now and again a dessert in the end of aisle, bargain freezer, in a major supermarket catches my eye. It’s usually between some variety of Birds Eye chicken and Goodfellas Pizza, both of which seem to be on continuous special offer. When I buy desserts they stay in the freezer for weeks until a suitable occassion for a treat comes up. One such occassion came up on Saturday. My mother had been staying for a few days and was returning home that afternoon. Frodo was given instructions to take the Banoffee Cheesecake out of the freezer but I foolishly did not give precise instructions regarding defrosting and so when I went to serve it two hours later it was still in the box and foil container, semi-frozen. We were due to leave within the hour but Frodo took no responsibility for the unfortunate situation we were in. Any guesses as to what he said? “You said take it out of the freezer. You never said anything about taking it out of the box.” I didn’t waste my breath telling him that if he’d read the defrost instructions he’d have found out it takes 2 and a half hours to defrost when taken OUT of packaging. An hour later we ate it and it was OK but still a little frozen which masked some of the taste. This was the first low. The high came on Sunday morning. I’d gone to the fridge for a low fat prune yogurt (which actually tastes better than it sounds) and was pleasantly surprised to see a slice of Banoffee Cheesecake still there. Cheesecake for breakfast. I was smiling even before I’d taken it out of the fridge. Things got even better when I took my first mouthful. It was delicious, so smooth and soft. It almost melted in my mouth and the banana flavour was exquisite. Who would have thought being fully defrosted could have made such a difference. My blissful state was rudely interupted by the arrival of a fly. I couldn’t ignore it because the cats’ food was out and worst case scenario was running through my head – fly poos on cat food, cats eat it, cats get very poorly. The fly started doing the typical fly thing of buzzing in the window, intermittently banging into the glass. I reached up over the worktop to open the window. This movement involved a long stretch with one arm while the plate with the cheesecake on was held in the other. The fly didn’t take immediate advantage of the open window to make its escape. In fact it’s first response was to fly back into the centre of the kitchen but it soon made it’s way back to the window and began buzzing against the glass. Apparantly oblivious to being only centimetres from freedom. To help it on its way I performed an even greater stretch to push the window open wider. Then came the second low. The cheesecake slid off the plate, hit the edge of the worktop, caught the corner of the washing machine and continued its desent by slidding down the cupboard until it landed in a blob on the floor. I didn’t see this series of events but the trail of evidence made it clear what had happened. My emotion could be summed up with the lyric from one of my all time favourite songs ‘a taste of honey is worse than none at all’. (substitute Banoffee Cheesecake for honey). The only consolation came when I was wiping up the mess. It stuck to the floor like Tesco Value glue ie. it seemed like it was stuck but wasn’t really. The thought of such a sticky substance in my tummy did take the edge off the pain. The fly left via the window and promptly re-entered through the door!

About stephanieroseishere

My life is amazing on a small scale and I can make it sound super amazing! It is unlikely I'll ever climb Mount Everest but I often navigate the mountain of stuff that accumlates at an alarming rate in various rooms in my house. My household consists of me, my OH (Frodo), my two daughters (D1 and D2) and my son (Son). Recently I read this somewhere “If I make someone smile today then my day has been worthwhile” or something like that. By writing this blog I hope to make many people smile but if only I read it I’ll be smiling anyway. I would love to get your comments and will endeavour to respond to any I get.

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