it don’t matter if you’re black or white: choc mint cheesecake

It’s officially been three full weeks since the passing of arguably the greatest legend of our time. Michael Jackson bid this earth adieu to continue his jammin’ existence with The Hound Dawg, The Princess, and his thugz Tupac and Biggie… and now that all his songs have been blasted in every permutation possible in the realm of MTV and mathematics, I’ve finally found some peace away from the crotch grabbing and moon walking to sort through my thoughts on the matter.  

(Oh and don’t worry, this post is about cheesecake)

Yellow people, we can’t dance

Coincidentally, just this March I was having breakfast with my best friend from primary school, musing about the immortality (or should it be mortality?) of The King of Pop (hehe! I just typo’d and wrote Poop!) and how we could not imagine a world without him. Sure, he’s a complete and utter fruit loop, but in the last half century, this man singlehandedly gave us a style, a talent and a genius that will never be replicated again. (For a little while anyways, the kids these days, they iz talented.)

Michael Jackson also provided a global platform for discussing the merits of skin colour, inciting hatred, bonding and general hoo-haa about whether he actually ever really suffered from vitiligo (or maybe he was just soaking himself in bleach every night because it’s so effing cool to be white).

He also singlehandedly confused generations of people ~ black people loved him because he was well, black. Black people also hated him because while he was black, he was also very not black. White people loved him because he looked like a white man who could dance. White people also hated him because, actually he was black and white men still can’t dance. Us yellow people, we know we can’t dance (such is the fraud that is life, I mean I know we got the brains, but how has brains ever helped you pull?), so we loved him for his music.

Anyway, I never discriminate on colour.  Not really.

The white choc mint cheesecake

I drew the straw to make dessert for a dinner party last weekend, and well, here’s a secret: I’ve never made dessert before. Much like my foray into baking, where I thought I was shit-hot but actually I was shit-not, I browsed hundreds of recipes to find something that even a noob like myself could not screw up. Confidence was at an all time low following these rock hard muffins, and I needed a boost. Just a little pick-me-up, a little cheer squad in my head (otherwise known as catty, you’re schizophrenic) to make me feel fuzzies.

So I’m making these cheesecakes and although deviating from a recipe is really not in my comfort zone right now, I hesitated at “add two drops of green food colouring” because (a) frick! I forgot to buy food-fucking-colouring! and (b) wait a minute, isn’t food colouring really bad for you? I debated with the catty in my head about whether I should run to Tesco, or just simply omit the poison-laced-dye that is food colouring. Why was I even debating this? Here’s why.

When I was a child, I was convinced that if it ain’t green, it ain’t mint. I remember my dad buying us choc mint ice cream (Home brand, 2L for 50c, that’s my dad!), which was green, with chocolate flakes. This was ok by me because it looked like Kermit tripped and fell into a CuisineArt PowerEdge 700 Blender (droooool) and I never did see why Miss Piggy thought he was the beez neez anyway. But I digress. Sometimes my dad would buy us a different choc mint ice cream (Black and Gold brand, 2L for 48c), which was white, with chocolate flakes. White?! At least we knew where they saved their two cents!  But, little catty, egged on by the other little (racist) catty in her head, refused to have white mint. Because white and mint? Them are oxymorons, they cannot be together!

Do children ever make sense? Do I ever make sense?

It don’t matter if you’re black or white

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over this issue, because when it came to my choc mint cheesecake, I really was at odds between pretty and healthy. Outer beauty and inner beauty. Does colour really mean so much? After much deliberation, I decided that actually it did not matter if you don’t look the way everyone expects you to, and no it wasn’t because I was too lazy to haul ass to Tesco to get food colouring (although that’s a good guess), I actually trekked to Tesco anyway, and bought a bag of mint leaves, so that I could garnish my very white cheesecake with a sprig of mint, to bring out its minty inner deliciousness.

And you know what? They were perfect. White and perfect. Everyone loved them, and goddamn I was a proud mama. I realise this is just beginner’s luck again, but meh, who cares. I’m loving my albino choc mint cheesecake babies.

So it doesn’t matter whether Michael Jackson was black, or white, or green. Ok green might have raised some paparazzical eyebrows. But regardless, Michael Jackson, who at one point in time whether you like it or not, was an afro-haired little black boy who survived a horrendous childhood at the hand of his abusive father, forged his way in life to become a mege mega star, and today gives hope to other under-privileged children of all colours, so that they know that they too can make a difference.

He may be gone, but his genius lives.