I wasn't going to have dessert, but it was right there, all gooey and sweet. It's like sex. I mean, when it's right there, what are you supposed to do? I wasn't going to have that either--sex--with my parents bunking in the office, but, well, it was right there.""I'll tolerate the gooey and sweet, Peabody, but I'm not thinking about you having sex with McNab, especially in the same sentence as 'my parents.'""I think they had sex, too."Eve struggled not to wince or twitch. "Do you want me to kick you down four flights of steps and make you walk up again?""I'd probably bounce all the way down, too, with all this gooey and sweet in my butt. So I guess not.""Good choice.
I should have asked why any room in the house was better than home to me when she entered it, and barren as a desert when she went out again—why I always noticed and remembered the little changes in her dress that I had noticed and remembered in no other woman’s before—why I saw her, heard her, and touched her (when we shook hands at night and morning) as I had never seen, heard, and touched any other woman in my life?
I was thinking of murder, mutilation and dessert like Ignacia Sandoval’s instructions for delectable empanadas made of minced mother-in-law’s tongue (said to induce peace and harmony in your household), or the gonads of your cheating husband (a savory dish to add spice to your lovemaking).
As one who appreciated the tragic side of eating, it seemed to him that anything other than fruit for dessert implied a reprehensible frivolity, and cakes in particular ended up annihilating the flavour of quiet sadness that must be allowed to linger at the end of a great culinary performance.
Only those who will love longer than they expected to can truly love pecan pie, which doesn't explain its status as death rows most requested last dessert, or why chopped pecans, corn syrup, directions from the Karo bottle's cherry-red side are what mercy taste like to some. But there you have it.
I have an idea," Annabelle said, "Let's go to the kitchen and peek in the larder. I bet there's still some gooseberry cake left from dessert. Not to mention the strawberry jam trifle."Lillian lifted her head and blotted her wet nose on her sleeve. "Do you really think a plate of sweets will make me feel better?"Annabelle smiled. "It can't hurt, can it?"Lillian considered the point. "Let's go," she said, and allowed her friend to pull her up from the bench.
Hugo planned a five-course meal: smoked duck, oyster stew, roast beef with mashed yams, a salad of apples with beets and blue cheese, then chocolate banana cream pie. Rich, rich, and richer still. Ben made pitchers of martinis and set aside thirty-five bottles of a tried-and-true Napa cabernet, pure purple velvet, and an Oregonian pinot gris, grassy and effervescent.