SATC2

Imagine a meal you starve for all day so you'll have room enough to eat. A delicacy so indulgent you only eat it once every couple of years: you get dressed up, leave the kids at home, and soak in every aspect of your evening out and your extra special meal. You eat it and it does not disappoint in the least. In fact, it's so good that you almost skip dessert but realize you're still hungry enough to eat. Despite the rich first course you've eaten, you survey the dessert menu and choose an equally decadent-looking dessert.

The meal arrives, and beautiful though it looks, it's a tad too heavy on the burnt sugar, and the look of it leaves you feeling a cavity growing between your back teeth. The special occasion that is the evening persuades you to dig in, if cautiously. You're relieved to find that beneath the sugary surface beats a heart of comforting familiarity. Although the first course was a hearty beast of a meal you'd never attempt to prepare at home, what with its culinary twists and turns, its adventurous mixtures of bitter and sweet, savory and sour; dessert turns out to be more of an old standard that's just been dolled up in its presentation.

Would dessert have been more satisfying if it too had been more daring in its blends of tastes and textures? Perhaps, but is there really a better ending to such a decadent meal than a familiarly delicious dessert? I think not.