Just Desserts

/ Jeff Cann

The best thing about eating pie for dinner is you can have another slice for dessert.

Thanksgiving morning: Susan turned on the oven. Sophie’s still in bed, but awake. She planned to bake her cinnamon rolls this morning when she woke up. Last week, while facetiming from college, Sophie rattled off a list of treats she hoped to make during her winter break. First on her list, cinnamon rolls.

She and Susan took over the kitchen for a baking happy hour or three yesterday. Susan made pies. First, pumpkin and later apple. Sophie, with less experience, made the dough for her cinnamon rolls. After sixty minutes, unhappy with the dough’s rise, she started over. Feeling bad about wasting the failed dough, she mixed in dark chocolate chips and popped it in the oven. Curious to see the result.

On Tuesday, after settling in back home, done unpacking, Sophie presented me with the birthday present she bought me back in October—a block of maple candy the size of a bar of soap. I put it on a cutting board on the kitchen counter. Every time I walk by, I chop off an edge and pop it in my mouth. The candy dissolves into an explosion of flavor and sweetness that makes my mouth water and jones for more.

For dinner last night, we ate the apple pie. While it was still cooling, we each had a salad—lettuce, carrots, peppers, that counts as the adult part of the meal. An hour later, Eli whipped some heavy cream with sugar to top the pie. The best thing about eating pie for dinner is after you eat the main course, you can have another slice for dessert.

When Sophie took the chocolate loaf out of the oven, everyone was surprised. It rose while it baked. It looked like a perfect loaf of bread with chocolate melted throughout. It’s delicious. If it seems to you that I just lazed around and ate last night while everyone else worked, you’re wrong. I did most of the dishes, and some, like the stand-mixer bowl, three or four times.

The holidays are here. My daily exercise output needs to jack up considerably over the next five weeks or I’ll have a serious weight problem. Since the mountain biking season ended a month ago, losing those three vigorous rides a week, my clothes have seemed a little tight. The past twenty-four hours have shown I have zero self-control.

Like many (I hope most), I’m spending today only with my immediate family—hiking, playing games, eating. In truth, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. Where ever you are today on this American Thanksgiving, I hope your day is safe and warm and full of culinary treats.

28 thoughts on “Just Desserts”

  12. I love the idea of pie for dinner. I am going to have to give that a try. After not eating sugar for over a year, I broke down and bought Bill a birthday cake. His birthday was the day after Thanksgiving. I ate a sliver every time I could think up a reasonable (or unreasonable) excuse. It’s an addiction!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment