East Bay Express: Best of 2009

BEST ASPIRING HOMEMADE CHEESECAKE MAKER
Victor Harris at Reuschelle’s Cheesecakes

In these halcyon days of chichi food-speak — “artisan” this and “organic” that — Victor Harris offers a refreshingly unpretentious dessert: the homemade cheesecake. The origins of his baking ambitions are likewise simple. Looking for something to do one night, the Oakland resident found a recipe online, ran out to buy cream cheese, and soon pulled his first cake out of the oven. That was in 2003. What began as boredom-induced pastry-making has since grown into a part-time business, Reuschelle’s Cheesecakes. The menu is as eclectic as the autodidact baker, who is also a DJ and car enthusiast. Customers can now choose from nearly fifty varieties of cakes, from the mainstream (strawberry) to the delightfully unexpected (peach amaretto) and the WTF (chocolate cayenne). The most popular cheesecake, the mousse-style caramel apple, has fresh fruit in every bite, a natural balance to the sweet caramel topping. Marketing is purely grassroots. Harris will arrive at parties and events with a cake in hand, ready to win over new fans (214 Facebook friends and counting). Also, Reuschelle’s Cheesecakes may soon be appearing at a local farmers’ market. And for orders within a forty-mile radius of San Francisco, the baker will deliver the cheesecake himself.

Lana Stefanac and Women’s MMA–Writer’s Cut

At 5’10” and 210 pounds Lana Stefanac is a Goliath in stature, but her story is pure David. Just three years ago, at age thirty-one, she left behind her life in Ohio for California, drawn West in pursuit of a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Today the Danville resident owns an undefeated record in mixed martial arts, or MMA, the hybrid fighting sport where combatants punch, kick and grapple for victory. She stands at the center of the women’s MMA scene in the Bay Area, setting up fights, managing fighters, and now, with her newly opened school, helping other women realize their own hopes of getting in the cage, no easy endeavor. MMA’s largest and most popular organization refuses to hold women’s bouts. Men dominate most martial arts schools, where women command little attention. And even the sport’s fans are unfamiliar with most female fighters. But Stefanac is undeterred. “Girls love to fight.  When they realize that there’s a community, there’s a group, there’s a resource for that, they will come in flocks.” And like Stefanac did so many years ago, they have.