Who will buy the cheesecake this year?
I hope that all of you are planning to attend the Peabody Main Street benefit auction that is coming up on March 10. We are starting to accumulate some fine products for your shopping pleasure. I am always pleasantly surprised by the number of clever people who come up with donations, either memorabilia or original hand-crafted items. This is a community of ingenious folks.
I have decided that my station in life is to buy what the rest of you bring in to sell. I am not too fond of parting with my Peabody memorabilia and I certainly have NO talent as an artisan of any kind. So bidding and buying must be my forte. Well, we all have to be good at something.
One of the best parts of the benefit auction evening is the "To-Die-For Dessert Auction." This event was the brainchild of Janet Post a number of years ago. Originally she thought it would be a swell idea to ask 10 or 12 of the best cooks in Peabody to donate their finest dessert. The desserts would be displayed and patrons encouraged to look them over closely. We hoped they would discuss and analyze their favorites with their tablemates, pool their resources, and bid a sizable amount on the dessert they all thought would be the most delightful.
The plan worked pretty well the first year. One bidder was a high roller and plopped down a bankroll for his dessert of choice. Everyone was impressed. His tablemates were grinning all evening. The rest of the desserts sold for a respectable amount and we were pleased with our new plan, but Peabody cooks didn't quit their day jobs to take up baking.
The following year, the bidding became a bit more brutal. Husbands got involved and checkbooks were drawn. Honest! The tally at the end of the dessert auction climbed to $600 or so. That is a lot of family pride
Now personally, I have never figured out why a man would spend a small fortune on his wife's pie or cake when all he has to do is ask her to make one next week. It must be one of those "guy things."
Of course, people who know me know I don't do cooking or baking stuff so that is foreign to me. In all my years I have made one pie, five birthday cakes, and a cookie sheet of sugar cookies for a second grade Valentine party. No one ever missed the second pie or requested the sixth birthday cake, and I never had to be room mother at the grade school again! So if I took something to this event there would be a sign next to it sporting a skull and cross bones and I wouldn't be the least offended. And The Mister, being a good sport, would probably suck it up and bid. Well, maybe not.
But here is what I want to tell you. The last time Main Street hosted a benefit auction, a cherry cheesecake of magnificent proportion, excellent presence and visual appeal, laden with cherries, froth, and fluff sold for $150. Now is that the stuff of community legends or what? And what do you suppose that sugar extravaganza tasted like?
We are working on getting an EXACT duplicate of that cherry cheesecake for the "To-Die-For Dessert Auction" coming up. Yes, it's true, this will be your chance to throw your hand in the air and bid up to $200, $300, even $400 for this culinary delight. And it will be your ONLY chance for some time to come.
I am not going to tell any of you what the cherry cheesecake sells for. Nor will I tell you who made it. There won't be a future column featuring bid-by-bid action. If you want to know, you will have to come to the steak feed and benefit auction and watch the performance. It just so happens I have tickets to the event and will be happy to sell you some. Better yet, get your tickets, bring your own bankroll, and plan to be the Big Enchilada in the world of cheesecake consumption.
We will be happy to take your money. We will put it to good use and you can enjoy a sugar high for a month. Sounds like a winning combination to me. See you there!
— SUSAN MARSHALL
