A Voice

I teach two nights a week at a local "degree completion" college. Last night the class across the hall from mine was having a guest speaker and asked if we wanted to sit in and listen. My girls that I am teaching are towards the end of their program and will be finishing within the next quarter or so. The students in the class across the hall are new students and the class is a motivation and self confidence class, which is required to graduate. They were talking about how to deal with difficult people, so I felt it a good idea to hear. The class was full and cramped, so my students and I made it to the back of the room and found seats. I've learned that as adult students, coming back to college, they tend to sit up front more often than in the back....I like this, but this is why we had to sit in the back :). I then sat and watched the entire class react to the speaker, respond to her questions and put their opinions on the table for the entire, hour-long presentation. There was one student however, that had only one statement, yet it was so profound I started to cry. The speaker was talking about what might make a person become difficult to deal with. Their raising, an abusive relationship, lack of confidence, all of these were mentioned and brought up. But then she spoke, ever so softly and quietly, that the class actually didn't even hear her, they didn't skip a beat....she said "maybe they just want to be heard, they want to know someone is listening". I heard the desperation in her voice, the lack of confidence as she was overpowered by the girl sitting next to her yelling out "I can't help it if they don't like working the drive thru!" People yelling "that's why you carry a gun", "people all be drama". She was meekly sitting in her seat with her head down, taking notes. I wanted to go up to her and hug her, because I know that feeling. I have fought that feeling my entire adult life. The feeling of being inadequate, of not belonging, of not knowing enough to matter. I feel it, but I fight it. It's a constant thing I am having to reassure myself that I AM good enough, I DO belong, and I AM smart enough that my opinions matter. It actually has made me quite opinionated and outspoken, almost like an overcompensation. I felt for this girl.

We all have an opinion on things, even if we don't exactly know in detail what it is we have an opinion on. We have an opinion on how to cook a steak....I think they are best rare, my husband prefers his almost burnt. We have an opinion on the president, even if it is based on other people's opinion, somehow we came to our opinion. We have an opinion on how to raise OUR kids, and a lot of times this is either very similar to how we were raised or purposefully polar opposite. We have opinions on everyday things in life and maybe we just want someone to hear our opinions. We want to have a voice and be heard. WE WANT TO KNOW SOMEONE IS LISTENING. I thought about this a lot last night and thought about some of the difficult people in my life that I have to deal with on a daily basis. Maybe I'm not listening to their cries, maybe it's just a last resort at being heard. Maybe they really aren't that difficult, they just need someone to say "I understand, I hear you" with a smile.

This girl was a single mother, who was struggling to make ends meet and was living with an abusive boyfriend just long enough to finish school....so her and her son could leave and make it. This girl has lost her voice....she has lost herself....and lost the confidence it takes to survive this world. However, she is a survivor and a warrior. She will make it, she will do fine, she will find her voice again, and I hope her son realizes what a powerful woman his mother is....even with her quiet and meek demeanor.

There was a movie awhile back titled "The Help", huge blockbuster....and amazing story line. In it was a quote...."You is kind. You is smart. You is important." How powerful such small words can be, and see how unimportant grammar is (I don't like grammar Nazi's)? We are born, we live, we survive, we die. That's the circle of life. Along the way, hopefully we find ourselves and LIVE not just survive, but truly live. Hopefully we find our voice, our own opinions and realize we are somebody, we are important and we're all in this together....just wanting to be heard.

MY NY Style Cheesecake

My husband loves cheesecake. I mean, it's almost an intimate relationship between him and the cheesecake when he sits down to have a piece. And...being a New Yorker, clearly he prefers the New York Style Cheesecake, not the Jell-o brand that whips up in 5 minutes. So...being the "always aiming to please" wife that I am, I learned how to make a New York Style Cheesecake. I have went through about 6 different recipes to perfect what I now call "My Cheesecake", because each recipe yielded something different, but had a unique quality that we liked and desired. The baking time and temperature has been the hardest tweek, and quite frankly...given a different oven, would need to be tweeked again. It's such a trial and error process with me and cooking. I like to make things easy and quickly, so I always try to find shortcuts around every recipe. This is the one recipe I can't find a shortcut around. You just can't make this quickly. Don't try....it won't happen. It requires prep time and planning time. It also requires you to make it the day before you actually need it. It is a huge pain in the butt recipe and even a little costly. With that being said, it is so worth it. It's so rewarding when you pull out your perfect, golden, stand a fork up in it cheesecake, that holds all the flavor, sweetness and creaminess of the city that we all love, The Big Apple. Each time I make it and we take that first bite, things get quiet. It takes us back to that deli in Manhattan, where each piece is the size of my face and you can't help but eat the whole, wonderful thing. So anyway...here is the recipe. This is OUR favorite, but may not be yours. We don't like the lemon in ours, nor do we like the crustless kind. To each, their own. Enjoy!

You will need....

Spring form pan
Aluminum foil
Another pan that the spring form pan will fit into
And a stand up mixer

1 1/4 cups of graham cracker crumbs....however you want to go about getting them. I use the crumbs in the box, it just makes life easier.
1/3 cup of melted butter


4-8 oz.containers of cream cheese (room temperature)(I use the 1/3 less fat just to try and make this even a little bit less horrible for me)
4-eggs (room temperature)
8 oz. or 1 cup of sour cream (room temperature)(I've learned to use the real thing here, not the light....it makes a difference)
1 1/3 cups of sugar
3/4 cup of milk (room temperature)
1/4 cup of self-rising flour
1 TBSP of vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 450F.
Grease your spring form pan or spray with a non-stick cooking spray.
Mix your butter and graham cracker crumbs together and press into the bottom of your pan.
Wrap your pan in aluminum foil, making sure to cover the bottom and half-way up the sides.
Mix your ingredients together...add them one by one...cream cheese and sugar first.
Mix until creamy and little to no lumps and pour into your prepared pan.
Place spring form pan into the other pan and pour water into the larger pan creating a "bain marie" which literally is like a bath for your cheesecake. This helps it rise and keep it from sticking.
Bake at 450 for about ten minutes.
Then lower the temperature to 200F and bake for two hours.
Then raise the oven back up to about 325 to 350 and bake for another 30 minutes.
You will have to keep an eye on it more at this point, because it will rise considerably and brown quickly.
DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN WHILE ITS BAKING! I can't promise you no cracks in your cheesecake (because it depends on your oven, your products, and your humidity), but I can promise you it will crack if you keep opening up the oven to check or adjust your cheesecake. And I don't mean a small little crack on the side, I mean a grand canyon across your entire cheesecake that you cannot fix.
Once you are happy with the color and it doesn't jiggle to much when you walk across the floor in front of the oven (haha), go ahead and shut off the oven and prop open the oven door for about 2 hours.
Then sit on the counter for about another 2 hours to finish cooling.
Then wrap with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight.

It's so good with anything you want to put on it(strawberries, blackberries, raspberries), but why mess with perfection?

ENJOY!