Very occasionally, a kind soul will come over toting a homemade dessert made from some combination of apples, brown sugar, brownie batter, Skor bits, marshmallows, cherries, and oatmeal. They set their heavy glass dish down on our kitchen counter, and peel back the plastic bag to reveal an earth-toned rainbow of deliciosity. We gaze at its sweet beauty for a moment, but then look at the pile of cold weenies and bulk-pack of yellow macaroni salad laying on the counter, and walk away, knowing that we’ll get to that dessert later, just as soon as we fill our stomachs with all the cheap stuff everyone else picked up from the clearance rack.
And eventually it does happen — the end of the meal arrives and the hero dessert is paraded to the table with pomp, fanfare, forks, and a stack of plates. By now everyone is stuffed, and so while people dip into this rectangle of tastiness, they just don’t have room to send it back empty. It inevitably gets Saran-wrapped up and put in the fridge for leftovers, hasty promises made to return the dish another time.
And that’s when it gets interesting. I’m a pretty big fan of dessert. I like its style. I think it’s cool. And so I eat it as soon as possible. I have a piece here, I have a piece there. It replaces bread the next morning at breakfast, starch the next evening at dinner. I really get on that dessert. I chip away at it until eventually there is only one piece left. And it is the consumption of that last piece, that final, beautiful square of leftover homemade dessert that is always the sweetest.
See, by this point it’s an old friend. I know it’s taste well, having succumbed to its vice-like grip over me for a few days since the party. I may actually be sick of it, but I would never admit it. All I know is that there’s a few mere minutes of enjoying its company left forever. It is a very happy yet very sad time.
There are some ways that eating the last remaining piece of dessert can be made sweeter, though:
- First up, eating it cold. When that dessert is only a couple feet away from your mouth, there really is no time allowed for heating. (+1 point)
- Next, eating it straight from the big serving dish. This is tricky, because if you’re watching TV you need to awkwardly lift a three-pound glass dish with one hand so you can shovel it into your mouth with the other. Be careful for wobbling. (+2 points)
- Methodically scraping every last crumb, ring of dried icing, and molecule of congealed syrup out of the dish, even getting up and getting a spatula if you have to. Licking is optional here, but may be necessary. (+3 points)
- The big one: thinking about the dessert just before you’re about to fall asleep or when you wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Thinking about it and not being able to get it out of your head until you walk to the kitchen, your feet freezing on the cold linoleum, touch-grabbing your way through the black maze of your apartment, until you pop open that refrigerator door, its bright light beaming out at you like the gates of heaven opening, and you just grab that saran-wrapped slice of greatness and eat it right on up. (+10 points)
AWESOME!
Step 4 of sweet dessert eating is very reminiscent of the McCain’s Deep and Delicious chocolate cake ad that ran through the mid-’90s.
I couldn’t find the exact one I was looking for (with a guy doing exactly as you described, down to the touch-grabbing), but this one is another oldie-but-goodie in the McCain’s commercial library.
I follow Step 4 very frequently at night, except because I am a poor college student, I never have “leftover desserts” (who has money or desire to actually make dessert?).
Instead, Mountain Dew is my drug of choice. Caffeine is likely not a good choice of beverage before bed, but on the rare occasion that I have Mountain Dew in my mini fridge, not a night goes by in which I do not want to quench my late night thirst with its sugary fluid.
Haha i love this post. Eating that dessert with my coffee morning and night, and if no ones home to see me, bring the whole plate with me to the couch. Definitely awesome.
this one’s the #1 most awesome thing EVAR on my list! =)
I don’t have to read any further. You just mentioned Skor bars, probably the single greatest candy bar invented. Neil, you are
AWESOME!
I miss that birthday cake stash I had lying in my fridge for 6 months.
Awesome! Leftover dessert always becomes breakfast until it’s gone (and sometimes lunch or dinner). It’s also one of the reasons I miss having an apartment that’s big enough to throw parties. ;)
When I eat the last peice of anything my grandpas says. ” save some for other people. I really dont care, but I’TS SOO GOOD!!!. I still eat it anyway.
This made me tear up throughout the post, I absolutely love everything about desserts like that!
Ha, Step 4 is just like me! I mean you can’t help it, it travels into your brain, and wisps in your dreams, and then it awakens you, and you have no choice but to obey it’s commands! Oh god I wish we still had some of that leftover pound cake….but I ate the last piece!
Thank you so much for this blog. I just discovered it, but I’m only letting myself read a few at a time so that way when I’m feeling bogged down by life I can read these tidbits of pure joy and feel better. You’ve certainly made my days more awesome!
Thanks Neil. You have a gift at connecting & bringing the happy on and strangely, I feel like I know you.
I’m maybe boring, but I eat dessert only on evening with my tea. I cannot even emagine how I can eat dessert in morning…
oh, I’m off to the fridge to make sure that if any pulls that stunt around here it’s me :))
This is when I love living by myself…I can eat dessert for breakfast , lunch of dinner if I want and at potlucks everyone always leaves the leftovers for me…loves those desserts!
I am really thankful to this topic because it really gives great information :;.
oooo i always get the last peice cause im the youngest
This is my favoritist-ever breakfast in the whole-wide- world…
left over sweet desserts! Awesome yummy!
yum. have strawberry-rhubarb pie tomorrow morning:)
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