Bena Mae’s Kitchen: Sometimes it snows in April

“Trees will burst with bright spring buds. Baseball bats will swing. First crushes will percolate. Tulips and daffodils will punch through the dirt. And the snow will stop. Please tell me it will stop.” Lyrics from “Sometimes it Snows in April” by Prince.

This weekend, the signs of spring are everywhere. Hopefully, the rains we’ve been having will help in making it a pretty spring. Already the trees are leafing out and flowering bushes are showing their bright colors. But I can remember another spring season when the calendar seemed to go backwards and dropped a big snow upon us that was a real surprise. A real shocker, to be more exact.

The weekend before had been an ideal spring weekend, sunny and warm. My azalea bushes had been in full bloom– pink, red, purple and white. They were show stoppers; people driving by would slow their cars just to get a better view of them.

The following weekend, they were covered with a heavy snow, an almost unprecedented event. I measured it’s depth on my deck and it was eight inches deep. The whole panorama of the earth covered in white brought to mind the poem by T.S. Eliot “April is the Cruelest Month.” (Jokingly, I have my own interpretation of why April is so cruel — it’s income tax time.)

Oh, well, as Mark Twain said: “In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.”

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I have always been fascinated by storm trackers who film tornados in motion. My thinking is that they have to be crazy to put themselves in harm’s way, but as they say, it takes all kinds. Following the subject link by link on the web, I hooted when I read the following story which is not amusing, but is funny nevertheless:

Out in Kansas, tornadoes often hit with sudden devastation, and without warning. In one case, a house was completely whisked away, leaving only the foundation and first floor. A silver-haired farm lady was seen sitting dazed, in a bathtub, the only remaining part of the house left above the floor. The rescue squad rushed to her aid and found her unhurt. She was just sitting there in the tub, talking to herself.

“It was the most amazing thing … it was the most amazing thing,” she kept repeating dazedly.

“What was the most amazing thing, Ma’am?” asked one of the rescuers.

“I was visiting my daughter here, taking a bath, and all I did was pull the plug and dog-gone-it if the whole house didn’t suddenly drain away.”

Amazing!

Warning — Once you start — You can’t stop!! Boy oh boy this is good!!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake

Serves 12

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup flour

1 cup mini chocolate chip

Cheesecake

1 1/2 cups chocolate cookie crumbs

1/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons butter, melted

3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough: Beat butter, brown sugar, and sugar until well blended. Stir in water and vanilla. Add flour, mix well. Stir in chocolate chips.

Cheesecake: Heat oven to 350*. Combine crumbs, sugar and butter, mix well. Press into bottom of 9 inch springform pan. Beat cheese until fluffy. Slowly beat in condensed milk. Add eggs and vanilla, mix well. Pour into prepared pan. Drop cookie dough in 1 t portions evenly over batter. Push the dough down into the batter. Bake for 45-50 minutes, until set. Cool, then chill.