{"id":257,"date":"2006-02-03T08:34:05","date_gmt":"2006-02-03T13:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=257"},"modified":"2006-02-03T09:15:59","modified_gmt":"2006-02-03T14:15:59","slug":"the-cheesecake-factory-must-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=257","title":{"rendered":"The Cheesecake Factory Must Die"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Warning: I am about to vent.  If splenetic ranting is not your<br \/>\nthing, back outta here <em>now<\/em>, for I am seriously pissed off.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m four days into an intense seige of work at an<br \/>\nI-can-tell-you-but-I&#8217;d-have-to-kill-you location in suburban New York,<br \/>\ntoiling away at a worthy cause.  I&#8217;ve been at it for twelve hours, and<br \/>\nI am truly ready for a decent meal. (Lunch was skimpy Japanese.) My<br \/>\ncolleagues and I send out for a massive order of comestibles from a<br \/>\nplace called the Cheesecake Factory.<\/p>\n<p>The Cheesecake Factory is a chain joint, but the locals think it&#8217;s<br \/>\nOK.  And indeed my &#8220;Ton O&#8217;Fun&#8221; burger is reasonably well made, if of a<br \/>\nsize I normally associate with minor planetary bodies.  One of my<br \/>\ncolleagues looks at it and mutters in a nearly reverent tone &#8220;Arteries<br \/>\nbe <em>damned<\/em>!&#8221;  This fails to disturb me.  I consume it with<br \/>\nglee.<\/p>\n<p>All goes well until I come to the alleged cheesecake.<\/p>\n<p>At this point I need to explain that I take my cheesecake pretty<br \/>\nseriously.  Given that I am averse or allergic to most forms of<br \/>\ncheese, this might strike some as mildly odd &mdash; but it&#8217;s the<br \/>\nmolds and fermentation products that make me go ick, not the dairy<br \/>\nproteins or lactose.  Cream cheese and I get along just fine, and one<br \/>\nof my favorite dessertlike things is a good old-fashioned<br \/>\ncheesecake.<\/p>\n<p>By &#8220;good old-fashioned&#8221;, I mean what is sometimes called the New<br \/>\nYork style &mdash; immensely rich, made with pure cream cheese. It is<br \/>\nnot &#8220;lite&#8221; or &#8220;fluffy&#8221;; indeed, it rejoices in a density only slightly<br \/>\nless than that of neutronium.  Your true cheesecake is flavor-dense as<br \/>\nwell, requiring no silly embellishments like frosting or fruit sauce;<br \/>\nthis cheese stands alone.  Though there is sugar in it, sugar should by<br \/>\nno means dominate in the flavor, which should rather be savory and<br \/>\nsubtle.<\/p>\n<p>The most important test for a proper traditional cheesecake is<br \/>\nsimple.  Stick a fork in it vertically.  A metal fork, not a silly<br \/>\nlightweight plastic one.  Now take your hand off the fork.  If it<br \/>\nfalls over of its own weight, tearing a messy divot in your dessert,<br \/>\nthe cake is fake.  A true cheesecake supports the fork indefinitely<br \/>\nwithout so much as a quiver. Another test is the texture.  A properly<br \/>\nmade cheesecake shows a distinct grainy texture when cut with a fork,<br \/>\nslightly moist but not expressing liquid to the surface.<\/p>\n<p>Color is also significant.  Your good cheesecakes are usually pale<br \/>\nyellow rather than white.  The truly superior ones tend to have an<br \/>\never-so-faint, nigh-indetectable bluish tinge. I have studied these<br \/>\nnuances with attention and care.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m ordering from an entity called &#8220;The Cheescake Factory&#8221; in the<br \/>\nNew York heartland of the cheesecake. I order the variety labeled in big<br \/>\nbold letters &#8220;Traditional&#8221;.  And what do I get?<\/p>\n<p>A vile, revolting, over-sweetened, bland cheese gelatinoid thing so<br \/>\nlacking in integrity that it slumps on the plate.<\/p>\n<p>OK, I&#8217;m cool with free markets.  I&#8217;m even cool with free markets<br \/>\nwhen they produce lowest-common-denominator results I don&#8217;t happen to<br \/>\nlike.  It may be that most of the consumers out there adore the gooey<br \/>\nstudge that the soi-disant &#8220;Cheesecake Factory&#8221; passes off as<br \/>\ncheesecake.  If its crappiness were confined to atrocity-of-the-week<br \/>\nflavors like &#8220;Coffee Heathbar Crunch&#8221; or &#8220;Craig&#8217;s Crazy Carrot Cake<br \/>\nCheesecake&#8221;, I could sigh in resignation at the wretched tastelessness<br \/>\nand endure it nevertheless.<\/p>\n<p>But, dammit, advertising the characterless pile of goo they gave me<br \/>\nas &#8220;traditional&#8221; is <em>fraud<\/em>.  And it&#8217;s not a harmless fraud, it&#8217;s<br \/>\nan act of subtle but damaging violence against good taste.  It<br \/>\nde-educates the palate; it lowers everybody&#8217;s standards until we lose<br \/>\nthe capability to tell the real thing from a puddle of ersatz shite.<br \/>\nThis is how civilization ends, not with a bang but with a jingle.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t get me wrong.  I&#8217;d rather live with bad desserts than have<br \/>\nanybody&#8217;s culinary standards, even my own, rammed down peoples&#8217;<br \/>\nthroats in the name of &#8216;civilization&#8217; by some snotty academie of<br \/>\niron-fisted connoisseurs.  Civilizations can die that way too,<br \/>\nconstipated on their own stuffiness.<\/p>\n<p>But when some soulless android of a chain restaurant designer<br \/>\nwillfully perverts the meaning of &#8220;traditional&#8221; so he can sell dreck<br \/>\nto the ignorant with the illusion that said dreck is just like what his<br \/>\nYiddish grandma made, that&#8217;s where I reach my limit.  The Cheesecake<br \/>\nFactory must <em>die<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Warning: I am about to vent. If splenetic ranting is not your thing, back outta here now, for I am seriously pissed off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}