This recipe, as simple as it is, has been highly praised for years by cheesecake lovers. It was given to me by default many years ago by a young woman who had a summer job in my kitchen. She kept asking me to make cheesecakes, saying that many customers had requested them. My consistent reply was that I didn’t have time to add another item, and besides that, I didn’t even have a good recipe. Not one to give up, she said her mother had a great recipe and she could even make the cheesecakes herself on Friday afternoons after I went home, so we would have them for the weekend. I finally decided it was worth a try and, sure enough, we began selling more and more of her cheesecakes as the summer went on. I must admit my feelings were hurt a few times when people would say to me (after learning of my association with their favorite pastry shop), “Oh, I just love that bakery; they have the best cheesecake!” So when the young woman went back to school in the fall, I had no choice but to continue making her cheesecake.