Mrs. Dresser's Cheesecake

When I was fourteen and living in Saudi Arabia, other Saudi-American families were hard to come by. Rumor had it that there were exactly eleven living in the Kingdom, and we knew four of them. One of those American wives gave me her cheesecake recipe. If Saudi-Americans were hard to come by, then cream cheese was an endangered species. Once in awhile a shipment would come in, and my mother would buy up every block and freeze them. And I would make cheesecakes. I developed quite a reputation among the expatriate community. Especially given the scarcity of the main ingredient. Somehow, there was always cheesecake at our house.

Decades later, waiting out a tornado warning in my basement, flipping idly through a dilapidated red plaid cookbook, I discovered a scrap of newspaper, carefully attached to the front page of the dessert section with masking tape, with the recipe for Mrs. Dresser’s cheesecake. I recognized the ingredients and amounts instantly. I wondered at how much distance and lifetime separated Mrs. Dresser from the cookbook’s previous nameless owner from a foreign wife from a teenage girl in Arabia churning out cheesecakes? Definitely a recipe that’s withstood the test of time and space. Oh yeah, and according to the note in the margins it “freezes too!”

Mrs. Dresser's Cheesecake

24 graham cracker squares

1/4 lb. butter, melted

24 oz. cream cheese

2/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 eggs

1/2 pint sour cream

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 tablespoon sugar

1 can cherry pie filling

Crush crackers, mix with melted butter, press into bottom of 9 in. spring form pan. Chill while preparing filling. Beat cream cheese till fluffy. Add 2/3 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and eggs; beat well. Pour over chilled crust; bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. (Handwritten note: bake on lower shelf, takes much longer than 20 min., about 45.) Blend sour cream, one tablespoon vanilla, and one tablespoon sugar. Spoon over cake and return to oven for five minutes. Refrigerate at least overnight. Before serving, spoon pie filling over top. Serves 12.