The story goes that, in 1872, William A. Lawrence, a dairyman in Chester, New York, started manufacturing what he called “cream cheese,” a creamier version of Neufchâtel, a crumbly French cheese.

He arrived in New York in 1941, where he reunited with his parents and sister. (His father had arrived in the United States via England around 1939, and his mother and sister via France, Spain and ...

The layered, lemony, fluffy, meringue-topped cheesecake I scored comes in at 62 ounces, which is 3.88 pounds of pure sugary fun. Costco Lemon Meringue Cheesecakes at my local shop.

NPR's Scott Simon talks with Mark Kurlansky about his new novel, "Cheesecake." It's a story of New York's restaurant and real estate scenes in the 1980s and, of course, that delectable dessert.

Their mother, Eileen Avezzano, first moved to New York from Philadelphia at age 18, following a dream of becoming a Rockette. But, alas, she was too short: “At the time,” Ms. Maloney said ...