Cheesecake for lunch

Our daughter Erin has been living a gluten-free life for the past two years since being diagnosed with Celiac disease. There have been many ups and downs, physically and emotionally, over the past two years culminating in three different stays in the hospital during this past April while she had severe symptoms and issues. Seriously, at one point, the girl was yellow - her eyes, her skin - all very strange.

The good part about her issues this past spring was that she found a young doctor who was willing to work closely with her to determine once and for all exactly what her physical problems may be. He wasn't convinced that she had Celiac, liver problems or whatall. They have been trying medications and diet variations since then to quell her symptoms and make her comfortable.

The latest experiment is a wheat challenge where she can eat wheat to her heart's content for two weeks, then have another endoscopy (putting a scope down her throat to check out her stomach and intestines) to see if there's any damage. She's been on wheat for about the past 10 days. With no symptoms. How awesome is THAT?!?

When they came over for dinner last week, I suddenly thought about Cheesecake Factory. Erin loves Cheesecake Factory and cheesecake in general. I've made a couple gluten-free ones for her over the past couple years and while they're not bad, they just aren't the same.

She had wanted to go to Cheesecake Factory for her birthday in September but decided not to since she couldn't have any cheesecake and it would have been too hard for her to be there and not have the forbidden fruit cheesecake.

So we made a date to go to the Cheesecake Factory last Friday. Not to have lunch, mind you, but just cheesecake. Neither of us felt as though we could or wanted to afford a full blown lunch, plus it would take away from room in the tummy that was reserved for cheesecake. We were there with Lucy when the doors opened at 11:30 am. Erin had stopped at Burger King to get Lucy a hamburger and fries since three year old little girls shouldn't eschew lunch even though their (supposedly responsible) adults were going to.

We were giddy with excitement. Erin pored over the menu and eventually chose a Kahlua Cocoa cheesecake and I got apple crisp with ice cream. I like cheesecake well enough but I'm Jonesing these days for apple crisp and while the difference probably wasn't all that large, there must be more calories in cheesecake than apple crisp. Hey, there's fruit, right?

Her first bite and every one thereafter was a private moment. I felt as though Lucy and I should leave so she could have some privacy but we didn't. I scraped the tower of whipped cream off my apple crisp and gave it to Lucy for her dessert. She was delighted. So was I.