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Dessert may be my favorite meal. I like it flamboyant and risky and interesting, with character. Finding the right one is tricky, but a wonderful journey.

I am in love with fruit. It is sweet but also can be tart or even sour. Some fruit is bitter, but that isn’t my favorite flavor, so I avoid all bitters. The combination of sweet and sour is sublime, so I usually try for that. I’ve never really been friends with anyone who is all sweetness. I find the sour equally important. I gravitate towards the irreverent, the comedic, the loud and the flamboyant in my friends. My fruity dessert only needs a couple of those qualities to be fantastic, whereas my friends can be quite complicated.

I find custard a lovely, winter dessert. It’s smooth and creamy but has substance too. It can stand on it’s own. I am a fan of people who are smooth and creamy in their speech but have substance, a back bone as well. I am especially impressed by women who stand up for themselves. It’s good to see when someone stands up for another person as well. Unfortunately that often as a poor substitute for standing up for oneself, so not as good. Custard, being a food, does not have to be as complicated.

I love a fresh plain croissant made in France. I’m not sure why they are so much better there, but they really are. Is it the air, the water or the flour? Perhaps it is the bakers. I believe that we put our feelings into whatever we are cooking, so that makes sense to me. A fresh, well made, flaky, French croissant for breakfast with a cup of strong cappuccino is really the perfect breakfast. Add a small piece of cheese and I may be in heaven. I find no reason to keep such a treat as only a breakfast food. It’s also a fantastic dessert. Taking something that perfectly simple and adding chocolate or nuttella or a cream center, is just mucking around. I feel the same way with humans. I love the freshness of a face without makeup. No jewelry. No fancy clothes. Just naked in the sun. Well, even in the rain, really, as long as it’s warm enough to be naked. Adding a smelling lotion or perfume, clothing that can’t get wet or dirty, hair that is sprayed in place, lipstick that can’t be kissed and mascara that will run if you cry – well that is like putting nuttella in the middle of a perfectly good croissant. Not my cup of tea.

Ice cream is another really great dessert. So many flavors – one for every mood. Chocolate is decadent. Mint is fresh. Coffee is invigorating. My favorite is huckleberry. It is fresh, like the berry itself. And full of flavor, but for me, it is also from my childhood. It has a memory as well as the taste, the coolness, the cream and the flavor. I’m not sure I can find a fitting comparison in a person. I am not fond of coolish or even cold people. I do like invigorating conversation and a fresh sense of humor. I definitely like decadence. Some people are part of my childhood memories and some just remind me. I guess I do know people similar to ice cream.

Adding a bit of flame to any one of these desserts, changes them entirely. Same with people. Add a resentment, yelling, hurtful words or deeds and the people seem very different, sometimes completely changed. I feel differently towards them. It’s the same with dessert, as they are all fantastic and wonderful in their original, pure form. Add flame and they change. Sweet and tart cherries soaked in a brandy and then lit become Cherries Jubilee. For the custard, a light sprinkling of sugar that is toasted with a flame turns it into Creme Brule. The croissant when filled with cream and soaked in rum, and lit on fire – becomes a Xuxu in Catalan. Take a delicious ice cream, cover it with a merengue that has been toasted with a flame, pour over with rum or whiskey and light it! Spectacular Baked Alaska.

I love the flame, it’s true. But I love the original dessert, and the unmarred human – more than the flame.