#receipe

Bourbon Almond Praline Sweet Potato Cheesecake

"Who was Alice?" I asked my mother. She didn't know. "She was probably one of my mother's friends." she'd said, just to fill the space. Like so many childhood questions, answers only come when you are older. Pre-heat your oven to 180 Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit. Mix 2 tablespoons of butter with 2 tablespoons of sugar. Add 1/2 cup of flour and 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder. Add 1 cup fine coconut and 3/8 cup of milk. Blend ingredients. "Mother" was how my mother mostly referred to her own. She had a way of saying it that emptied all meaning from the word. "Mother" did not contain one ounce of mother, not even a drop of mothering. Place the batter in a 20cm (8 inch) Pyrex bowl. Pour over the top, while still hot, 1 1/4 cups brown sugar dissolved in 1 cup boiling water. Place in oven. "Mother" or Effie gave wet kisses and awkward hugs, and was seemingly unable to breach the titanium of her own containment vessel. The one day that she did, she managed to dispatch her wedding rings down the waste disposal and was later found on the front lawn, drunk and decrying the infidelities of her husband, my grandfather. Lack of loving gets passed down through the generations, they say. I like to think Alice was actually Saint Alice. Leprous, blind and nearly paralyzed, cooking up the miracle of Alice's Dessert for the Cistercian nuns of La Cambre Abbey, by feel and with love. I'd rather two servings of Alice's Dessert, prepared and plated by a leprous Cistercian lay sister destined for sainthood, any day, over a childhood without love. When the top of your batter begins to brown place tinfoil loosely over the bowl to stop it becoming too dark, and to slow the evaporation of the sauce. By 30 to 40 minutes your batter should be light, fluffy and coconutty, floating on a cauldron of sweetness. Take a knife and pierce it through its heart. If it comes out clean you're almost there. Now it's time for love. One Kindred Spirit

Creme (creme fraiche, madagascar vanilla, powdered sugar)

nm_meiyee