D:

[silverflight8]

Someone linked "Addicted to Hate" by Jon Michael Bell on ebooks the other day, which is a manuscript written by a journalist looking at Fred Phelps (of Westboro Baptist). The manuscript was never published because Bell's employer refused and tried to essentially destroy all traces of the project, so Bell filed a lawsuit with the entire thing as a court document (therefore public). Here is the link to it on ebooks: http://ebooks.dreamwidth.org/87903.html

This sickened me to read.

Even if a half, a tenth, a hundredth, a thousandth of the abuse detailed is true--never mind the public acts of hatred and bigotry which are not disputable, never mind the emotional abuse, never mind the wild accusations and complete perversion of law, never mind every other thing--if a thousandth of the domestic abuse described in that manuscript happened...I don't know what to say. Acts like that get you locked up, except when it's perpetuated on your helpless family, which can't get out.

Reading it convinced me that Phelps, who eventually could not beat and emotionally/mentally destroy his children anymore, turned the full force of that onto the world, commencing his anti-gay campaign, though to call it merely "anti-gay" is an absurd understatement. He was a disgusting, sick man who tortured, isolated, and forced his family into essentially making him god.

Truly sickening.

In much happier news, I made an entire cheesecake tonight! I had the ingredients from forever, and today I finally made it. The lumps from the cream cheese would not come out no matter how long I kept stirring, but it came out beautifully.

Also now I have a 9' pie pan's worth of cheesecake, and I live by myself. I realized upon taking out the cheesecake that wow, that's a lot of cheesecake! I'm going to try to transport some of it to a meeting I have tomorrow, so someone can help me eat it. I really need to think these things through! And someone needs to figure out how to send cake through the internet.

Comments

[spiralsheep]

British cheesecake (set in the refrigerator) is usually cheese + biscuits + butter + cream + optional flavouring (fruit flavours such as lemon are the most traditional).

Before my friend came to stay she asked me to help her stay of chocolate, cake, and crisps, to which I laughingly responded that I don't keep crisps or cake in the house and my chocolate is the dark bitter kind she doesn't like so unless she brought cake or crisps with her.... She insisted on pudding though (tried to persuade me to make lemon meringue pie! Cheeky mare!).

[silverflight8]

So there isn't any egg, I suppose? I saw some "no bake cheesecakes" and dismissed them as approximations (I'm sorry), you know, like brownies in a mug (of which I have a recipe and make when I really want a vaguely cakeish thing but it's 9pm and I am not going out.)

Lemon meringue! Oh I want to make that again.

[spiralsheep]

No egg (precious eggs are for baked egg custards and to emulsify flours &c). I think the key is English biscuits. The consistency of digestives (or ginger nuts or whatevs) is why the base doesn't need baking and there's no reason to bake a cheese/cream/fruit topping. I suspect traditional Italian style cheesecakes needed baking not because of the ricotta (mascarpone? I would!) topping but because their biscuits are less suitable for solidifying into unbaked bases, especially in a warmer climate (before fridges Brits had cold homes larders/pantrys to set recipes).

[silverflight8]

I've always viewed custard a little bit suspiciously (they're like aggressively milky and eggy and that sounds totally ridiculous but it's one of those foods which are not what I grew up with :P)

Oh, hmm. I think the cheesecakes are usually suggested with graham crackers, which are kinda like digestives?? I've just realized I've lumped them together in my mind because they go into the mental category of "cookies - not as delicious as sugary ones". >.> I shall have to try to make a no-bake cheesecake sometime! and then gloat on the internet