Sicilian Cheesecake with Raspberry Sauce

My husband's birthday is in the middle of this month, and we like to start celebrating early. The birthday week (or two) usually involves doing mostly whatever the birthday boy wants to do, and treating him to one (or usually more) meals out. The other day, he expressed an interest in going to our local Olive Garden, and that sounded good to me!

So we went in and had an early lunch. Spaghetti and soup for him, fettuccine alfredo and salad for me. The fettuccine was so good, I was moaning with pleasure; my husband says that's as happy as he's seen me lately. Our meal was accompanied by breadsticks.

Since we were there celebrating a birthday, they let him select any one of the sweets from the desserts menu, for free. So it was that he enjoyed this beautiful slice of Sicilian cheesecake with raspberry sauce and whipped cream. It was delicious, for I know: I had several bites!

When we were done with lunch, we decided to run over to Sam's Club, as we hadn't been there in months, and he had a long list in his head of all the things we needed. We drove over through Toftrees, and checked out the construction that's going on at the junction of Fox Hollow and Bernel Roads, which are some of the roads I used to drive in to work on.

When I say Bernel Road, you may remember the pretty little park on Bernel, which is one of the nicest local parks I know of. But Bernel Road is closed now; as for the park, let's just say that you can't get there from here!

We ended up on Rock Road, driving past the place I always liked to stop, home of the Spring Creek Madonna (whose story appears here and here), near the rusty bridge over Spring Creek.

"We should stop for a minute, so I can take some pictures," I said. (This is known as "bartering for a photo stop," as when I'm not the one driving, I can't just hoss the car on over and stop for a few minutes, as I so often did on my daily drive to and from work.) "OK, but just for ONE MINUTE," he teased me; "we'll be going by this same place on the way home."

"Two minutes," I said; "No wait, five. Hmm. Let's say ten just for good measure. OK, OK, let's make it twenty minutes! But now I'm DONE bartering!" Exasperated, my husband replied, "But that's NOT how bartering works!"

So it was that after a quick shopping trip at Sam's, we came back on Rock Road and stopped by the spillway and the rusty bridge. I know you have seen this place quite a few times on Blip, mostly in the depths of winter, when there might be the lure of frost mist rising from the creek. It has been rainy lately, so it looks like a great rainforest. So please enjoy the photo of Spring Creek in the extras, looking lush and green.

My soundtrack song is for the dessert above: the Eurythmics, with Sweet Dreams.