Jaspir & The Pink Snow

Jaspir dropped off a piece of his homemade cheesecake for Paw and me to sample. The presentation was exquisite - very Bento Box - with the cake in one compartment and the thinly sliced berries in another. It was so beautiful! I could feel the love emanating from it.

Unfortunately, we had labs in the morning for our annual physical and didn’t want to hurt our cholesterol or blood glucose results, so we just watched it on the refrigerator shelf as it waited to thrill us. I swear I heard it whispering my name.

Finally, after our labs and a picnic lunch in the vineyard, we enjoyed Jaspir’s strawberry cheesecake . The crust was made from some sort of crumbled whole grain breakfast cookie. It was perfection, so rich, a hint of sweetness.

Paw drooled a little when he tasted the lemon. He loves vanilla, but he loved the lemon flavor even more. Paw said it was the creamiest cheese cake he’d ever had and couldn’t believe how super smooth Jaspir got the filling. (Confession: I suspect that might be partially because I always use a box mix for my cheesecake and Jaspir used real cream cheese). But I didn’t say a word. I wanted to let the magic linger. And magic it was!

I loved everything about it. Even the way each strawberry was sliced - so thin they were translucent.

And the “piece de resistance” were the hearts. Jaspir had taken frozen strawberries and grated them into pink strawberry snow. Then he drew little hearts on the surface of the cheesecake with a toothpick. Then he sprinkled the snow over the top of the cheesecake. As it melted, it filled the indentations left by the toothpick. Voila!

Too bad neither Keith or I got a passable photo of the little pink hearts. This is the best I can offer as a hint. You’ll have to imagine the cheesecake covered with those little darlings.

It seemed to me like this was a competitor’s entry in some sort of Food Art contest. Just a masterpiece! To see him create something like this: WOW! I am really gob-smacked! And, then, to share it with us!

We love our Jaspir and are so grateful for him in our lives.