Desperation Dessert

English

It was Easter Sunday during lockdown--not that the holiday is significant at all, it just happened to be Easter, and I wanted dessert. But because it was lockdown I was trying to limit my trips to the grocery store, so I had to make do with what I had on hand, which was very little. What I did have, of all things, was a packet of cream cheese that I'd bought a YEAR AND A HALF beforehand (when my now ex-boyfriend/ex-best friend came to visit over Thanksgiving) and had never eaten nor even opened, because I don't like cheese. But I do like cheesecake, and after some googling had come across a Food52 post called "How to Make a Cheesecake Without a Recipe" or something similar. What I cobbled together from found pantry items was a Pinot Grigio-based cheesecake with a crushed almond and sesame seed oil crust topped with lingonberry jam. Sounds fancy, doesn't it? If you're going to expunge the last remaining vestiges of a devastating breakup from your fridge, might as well go all out. Until you add in the expired-but-somehow-still-good cream cheese and the fact that I don't actually know how to make cheesecake and you end up with the atrocity pictured above. Somehow didn't get food poisoning.