Carousel Cakes: New York Cheesecake

Carousel Cakes
5 Seeger Drive
Nanuet, NY 10954

845-627-2323
Fax: 845-627-0258

I recently sampled a New York Style Cream Cheesecake from Carousel Cakes. I had previously heard about Carousel Cakes on a wedding message board, but hadn't tried their cakes yet.

I was very pleased with the cheesecake ! It was creamy and delicious. I liked that the cheesecake had a thin bottom layer of white cake instead of the usual graham cracker crust. That really allowed the flavor of the cheesecake to stand out on it's own.

My mother and father loved the cheesecake. My mother's immediate reaction was to say "Come here ! You have got to try this !" [I think I know what they'll order for my birthday : D ] I also shared some of Carousel Cakes' cheesecake with a friend. He is originally from New York and gave the cake a big thumbs up ! I would recommend you all try some for yourself. I'd offer you some of my cheesecake, but most of it is gone already : D

Here are my parents' reviews:

"This tastes good ! It's creamy, a little lemony...."

"Dear Megan: I was very impressed with the slice of cheesecake you shared with me. Years ago,before you were born,there was a NY style deli in Va Beach that was very well known for their cheesecake. This cheesecake brings back fond memories of that cheesecake. I loved the texture.Very creamy and not too sweet. I'm not a fan of cheesecakes that have a lot of crust on it. I loved the fact that there was little crust to this cheesecake. I would not hesitate to order from this company,not only because of the unique quality of their cheesecake,but also because of the packaging it arrived in. I liked the multiple layers of Styrofoam they used to send it. That tells me they know they have a quality package and want their product to arrive in the best possible shape."

Blue Cheese Burgers on Homemade Buns

The other day, I had a pound of ground beef in the fridge. I decided hamburgers on the George Foreman grill would hit the spot on a rainy day. After a bit of Google searching, I came across these two recipes:

Blue Cheese Meatballs

Hamburger Rolls - The Ultimate in Softness

Two changes I made: I skipped the olive oil and tomato sauce in the meatball recipe. I mixed the blue cheese in with the ground beef before making it into patties, instead of inserting one piece.

Both recipes turned out really well. My family quickly devoured the burgers and asked for seconds. I highly recommend trying these recipes. They are simple and delicious.

Sources:

"Recipe(tried): Blue Cheese Meatballs", Board: Daily Recipe Swap, From: Micha in AZ, RecipeLink.com

"Hamburger Rolls - The Ultimate in Softness", Recipes For the Future blog, Secretfoods.blogspot.com, July 24, 2005

Kashi Cereal Bars: Blackberry

I recently received a coupon for a free Kashi product. I decided to use the coupon for a box of Kashi's Blackberry Graham Cereal Bars. The bars are considered "soft baked snack bars" The box touts "3 grams of fiber", "nothing artificial", "made with real fruit" and "7 whole grains."

The crust is made from whole oats, barley, long grain brown rice, etc. The blackberry filling is made from pear juice, molasses, blackberry puree and apple powder, plus a host of other ingredients. I find it slightly deceptive that the box says "Real Fruit: Sun-sweetened blackberry with a touch of tang."

Ingredients aside, I didn't care for the bars. The crust tasted fine, but the filling tasted like artificial grape flavoring. Also, each bar contains 9 grams of sugar and 125 mg of sodium. I will stick with buying fresh blackberries instead.

Good-bye, Ruby Tuesday

I received a weird email from Ruby Tuesday recently. Click the link above to view it. Apparently they are blowing up "the last old Ruby Tuesday" and will air live coverage of the event.

My honest opinion ? I kind of cringed at the ad. The old Ruby Tuesdays had a laid back, fun atmosphere and tasty food. I don't visit the new ones anymore. Everyone in my family refuses to go, in fact. The last two times we visited Ruby Tuesday, the salad bars were smaller. The furniture and decor was changed to have a formal, dreary, business meeting appearance. Also, I received a very sad excuse for a quiche and asked for a different meal, only to be brought another bland, sad looking entree. I read somewhere that Ruby Tuesday wants a formal, upscale steak house feel to their store. Hmmmm....

So, dear readers, share your thoughts. Do you prefer the old Ruby Tuesday or the new Ruby Tuesday ?

*August 8th update: I received another email about this:

"The news we've sent to you in the last few days about the demolition of the last old-style Ruby Tuesday and the building we "blew up" by mistake wasn't really real (you already had your suspicions?). It was all for fun and our way of showing just how much we have changed, how most casual dining restaurants have come to look alike, and how much fresher and better Ruby Tuesday really is now.

Cheeky's Bar & Grill, the other "restaurant" that was "demolished" by mistake was actually a scale model in a studio in Hollywood. We were joshing you a little, and we hope you'll forgive us. We couldn't help it, really. All these changes that have made our restaurants the best they've ever been make us smile - put us in the mood to make a joke or two while we're telling the world our brand is really different from all the rest. We hope it made you smile, too."

New Happenings At Starbucks

This is a six page article, so I'll give you the highlights:

- Starbucks has a hush-hush new half-drink half-dessert coming out. ["I think we have the next Frappuccino!"]

- Starbucks is closing 100 stores.

- "I'd heard that, not long ago, two women sitting in a Seattle Starbucks were griping about how horrible the breakfast items were, when a tall, well-dressed man sitting near them -- Schultz himself, or so it was said -- chimed in that he agreed. All true, Schultz says. "I have been embarrassed by the food," he goes on. "The food is going to be completely reinvented by fall. With a stake in the ground. Done."

-"...Truth be told, Schultz would probably rather have Mickey Mantle's mitt; as a kid in Brooklyn, he wrote Mantle's number in Magic Marker on all his clothes, even his underwear."

-"On weekends, he [Schultz] reads emails from employees, who have his address. There have been 9,000 messages since January, and he says he's read them all."

-"Schultz can make himself seem like a saint, which can be a little disconcerting. How many people do you know who describe themselves as "benevolent"? He also embellishes -- calling Starbucks' iconic store at Pike Place Market its first (it's really the fifth) or saying that Starbucks was named after the character in Moby-Dick (only partly so) or that he served the first latte in America (he didn't) -- and has let people depict the Brooklyn streets on which he was raised as something out of West Side Story (they weren't). The press has generally overlooked such things."