Enter "The Triangle Zone" for Valentine's Day with Eli's Cheesecake

 

    You don't need me to tell you that cheesecake is the essence of romance. Its sensual sleekness and cool perfection. The sweetness. The initial chill that warms, yielding wonderful flavor, like love itself.
    With the new Valentine's Day Eli's ad going up last week, of course I reflected on past voyages into the sensual side of cheesecake, its intrinsic share-ability, how going back to ancient times cheesecake has enraptured some of the greatest minds of Western civilization. You would think there could not be more to say.
    But there is more. Cheesecake is endless.
    I have not yet remarked on the shape of a wedge of cheesecake. But Japanese novelist Haruki Murikami has, in his pristine short story, "My Cheesecake-Shaped Poverty" published by The New Yorker in 2023. A poor young married couple rents a house on a piece of land defined by busy railroad lines. 
    He calls the lot "The Triangle Zone," and while that would have been sufficient, he elaborates thus:

    "Imagine, say, a round, full-sized cheesecake. Cut it into twelve equal pieces with a knife so it’s like the face of a clock. What you’d end up with, of course, are twelve slices of thirty degrees each at the tip. Place one of these on a plate and, as you sip your tea, take a good hard look at it. That tapered end of the thin slice of cake? That’s exactly the shape of the Triangle Zone I’m talking about."

     Honesty, I thought the author of "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles" was going to go ... ah ... go other places one he had established the Triangle Zone. They can be quite racy, Japanese authors. But that's as far as he takes the notion, the rest of the story involving the couple renting the property despite the real estate agent's attempts to dissuade them. ("Isn't it too noisy?" he asks).
    Cheesecake certainly has its place in fiction. Stephen King told Bon Appetit magazine that he begins work on a new novel by eating cheesecake. "Cheesecake is brain food" he said, though it does not seem to be Eli's Cheesecake, which might account for his books' morbid tone.

     The internet has a grave idiocy to it which AI will struggle to overcome. I've seen several sincere references to George S. Wykoff's 1928 monograph "Cheesecakes in Literature" none noting that the thing is obviously a joke — people jested, even 100 years ago. Wykoff quotes Hamlet saying, "Thus cheesecake doth make cowards of us all." 

     There is undoubtedly cheesecake in Damon Runyon, though the Broadway chronicler displays an unfortunate prejudice for the New York version. 

     "Still you will admit that Mindy's cheesecake is the greatest cheesecake alive," Frank Sinatra's Nathan Detroit says to Marlon Brando in "Guys and Dolls."

      "Gladly," Brandon purrs.  "Furthemore, I am quite partial to Mindy's cheesecake." 

      I will point out that both characters are criminals whose judgment cannot be considered sound. Although the observation that cheesecake is "alive" does harken back to its animate, passionate quality. The stuff is practically a force of nature.

     Enough. We are avoiding the most important point — as are you. The important point is that today is Feb. 2, you have bought nothing for your beloved, because you are a laggard and in a relationship so long that you've become slack and careless. Love fades and founders on such laziness, which creeps in and rots even the strongest foundation while we remain unaware, until it is too late, and the carefully-built edifice that has protected us for so long comes crashing down on our heads.

    Fortunately I am here to help you. There is still time. You needn't look up from your silage to see your lovemate stamping out the door, suitcase in hand, too angry or indifferent to bother casting you a final look or a tart goodbye. That is because you are not going totake your relationship for granted. You are going to take decisive action by clicking here and ordering her — or him, or them (who am I to pass judgment on your preferences and arrangements?) the heart-shaped Black Forest cheesecake that Eli's so generously shares with the world. It is not only the right and honorable thing to do, but the only thing standing between yourself and heartbreak and loneliness.  You can thank me later.