Image by: Becca

Family…it is the one thing in this world that we are born into or given in this world. But along the way we are allowed to choose our families by the people that we naturally connect with as well as the people who readily understand us. We are essentially given two families in the world, the ones that we are naturally a part of and the one that we create for ourselves…the one that we choose. Regardless of this, it is always important to be family-oriented…in terms of spending time with the people that you love and those that love you. It is something truly special about creating memories with loved ones because these are times that will be cherished forever. There are events and specific times in life that we want to share with other people such as anniversaries, sporting events, birthdays, et cetera. This past weekend was my older sister’s birthday and my family spent most of the time planning out the festivities that we would indulge in to celebrate this special birthday.

We were so torn on what activities to partake in for the entire family to enjoy as well as the birthday girl. My family rarely has time where we can all get together as a whole to spend time together but for big events such as graduations or birthdays, we somehow manage to find a way to compromise busy schedules in order to be available for the events. Still, we had a fun-filled weekend of going to the movies, visiting a local bakery for dessert, opening birthday presents, playing glow-in-the-dark miniature golf, and going to dinner as a family.

My older sister, Amanda, absolutely loves cheesecake so it is almost a tradition to treat her to a visit to Cheesecake Factory in order to celebrate her birthday accordingly. But that is not always the case as we almost always seem to have some time of car trouble around the time of her birthday that prevents us from being able to travel to Long Island to her favorite restaurant. This year, thankfully, our family car was operating greatly which gave us the opportunity to throw her the best birthday possible.

Image by: Reggie Lam

There are many versions of cheesecake, both sweet and savory. But there are many variations of cheesecakes, the French cheesecake that usually uses  Neufchâtel cheese which is creamier and tarty as well as the Italian cheesecake that uses ricotta cheese or mascarpone cheese which results in a drier texture of cheesecake. But my all-time favorite, as well as my older sister, is the New York-style cheesecake which uses sour cream in the batter which has a tangy but rich texture and flavor which is absolutely delicious. Cheesecake has become such a centrical part of celebrating her birthday and I hope that it was just as special this year.