Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries — The Simple Sweet That Earns Its Place in the Notebook

The week began the way the weeks begin now: coffee at 5:30 AM in the dark kitchen, Sven at my feet, the lake beginning to show itself through the window as the gray of pre-dawn turned into the gray of full dawn. The silence is no longer the silence I feared. The silence is the architecture of a life I am still learning to live in. I have lived in this house for thirty-seven years. The first thirty-two of them, Paul lived here too. The last five, he has not. The math gets clearer every year and the meaning gets harder. Mamma called Tuesday. Her voice was small but her mind was sharp. She wanted to talk about Pappa, of all people. About the time he fixed her bicycle in 1962. About how he always said "there" when he had finished a job, the same way every time, the small declarative finality. She had not thought of this in years, she said. The memory came to her in the kitchen, while she was peeling an apple. I listened. I did not interrupt. The memory was unprovoked and total. The memory is everything. Erik came over Sunday. He chopped wood for me without being asked — the pile by the back door was getting low, and Erik had noticed, and Erik had brought his ax, and Erik had spent forty-five minutes splitting and stacking and not making a single comment about how the wood needed to be done. He drank coffee. He left. The whole visit was forty-five minutes. It was perfect. Erik is a perfect brother in the specific way of Scandinavian brothers — silent, useful, present. I cooked Strawberry pie this week. Fresh strawberries in a pre-baked butter crust, glazed with strawberry juice thickened with cornstarch. Topped with whipped cream. Eaten cold from the fridge. The Damiano Center on Thursday. Gerald told me a long story about a bus accident he had survived in 1988 in Duluth. He had not told me before. He has been telling me more stories lately. I am the audience he has been gathering, slowly, over years. I listen. I do not interrupt. The stories are the gift he is giving. Pappa would have liked this week. The fish were biting. The weather was clear. The Vikings won. He would have approved of all three. Pappa was a man of small approvals — he did not say much, but he made a small grunt of acknowledgment when something was right, and the grunt was the highest praise he gave. I miss the grunt. I miss being given the grunt. It is enough. It has to be. And on a morning like this, with the lake doing what the lake does and the dog at my feet and the bread on the counter and the kitchen warm enough to live in, it is. I keep a small notebook on the kitchen counter — green spiral-bound, from the drugstore. I write in it most days. The notebook holds the things I do not want to forget — Erik's stories about Pappa, Karin's notes about Mormor, Sophie's first words about her babies, the recipes I have changed slightly and want to remember in their changed form. The notebook is a small museum. The museum will go to Anna eventually, and then to Sophie, and then to Sophie's daughter Ingrid, and then onward. It is enough.

The strawberry pie I made this week used a pre-baked crust and a cornstarch glaze and whipped cream from the carton, and it was good — eaten cold from the fridge, standing at the counter, which is how I eat most things now. But the recipe I keep coming back to, the one I have written in the green notebook in its slightly changed form, is this one: Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries, which requires no oven and no occasion and nothing more than a bowl of fresh berries and the patience to hull them carefully. Pappa would have approved of the economy of it. Erik would have eaten six without comment. I make them for myself, mostly, and that is enough.

Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 20 min | Servings: 24 strawberries

Ingredients

• 24 large fresh strawberries
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened to room temperature
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons graham cracker crumbs
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar (optional, for graham cracker topping)

Instructions

1. Prepare the strawberries. Rinse strawberries gently and pat completely dry. Slice a thin sliver from the bottom of each berry so it stands upright without tipping. Hull each strawberry from the top using a small paring knife or melon baller, cutting a cone-shaped cavity large enough to hold filling without splitting the berry.
2. Make the cheesecake filling. In a medium bowl, beat the softened cream cheese with a hand mixer on medium speed until completely smooth, about 1 minute. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla extract and beat again until fluffy and well combined, about 1–2 minutes. Taste and adjust sweetness if desired.
3. Fill the strawberries. Transfer the filling to a piping bag fitted with a star tip, or to a zip-top bag with one corner snipped off. Pipe the cheesecake filling generously into each hollowed strawberry, mounding it slightly above the top of the berry.
4. Add the topping. In a small bowl, stir together the graham cracker crumbs and granulated sugar. Sprinkle lightly over each filled strawberry just before serving.
5. Chill and serve. Arrange on a platter and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes before serving to allow the filling to firm slightly. Serve cold. Best eaten the day they are made.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 52 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 3g | Carbs: 5g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 35mg