For Ben

The greatest dessert I ever ate was something called a Harvest Cheesecake. It was at Houston's, a classy restaurant in...uh...Houston.

Anyway, it was really just a pumpkin cheesecake as far as I could tell, but what more could anyone wish for? Pumpkin: primary source for world-class pies and holidays; and cheesecake: just plain world-class. I guess the real reason it was so good was because it followed the best pork chop I've ever eaten in my life and the best ranch-style beans, plus what I ate of my dad's dinner, a mango-marinated ribeye cooked to a perfect medium and served with french fries that somehow transcended the limits of their genre. Add to that the dimly lit, well-decorated, quietly noisy dining room and the fact that we were minutes away from seeing some first-class theatre, and you can imagine that I was pretty well prepared to accept that cheesecake as the high point in my young life.

And it was: spicy and smooth, creamy and crumbly, all the richness of cream cheese with a mellow accent of October—sweet mercy and a happy ThanksHallowgivingween to you too. Life's pretty much been downhill from there.