Sunday, December 16, 2007

The Subject of Sweets

While sweets are not my particular weakness, I do always keep chocolate around the house - small wrapped pieces of Dove Dark Chocolate kept in a Waterford biscuit barrel and bars of 73% Cacao Organic Chocolate from Trader Joe's stored in a cupboard. I eat the Dove; Walter eats the Trader Joe's. Even though I like dark chocolate better than milk chocolate, the exception is a Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate Bar, but only one that is actually produced in the U.K. It is delicious with the most wonderful mouth-feel. Perhaps I like it because I spent so much time in England as a child, where along with Rowntree Fruit Gums, Rowntree Pastilles, and Smarties, it was one of my favorite things to get at The Crest, the sweet shop up the street from my grandparent's house.

When I moved upstate from NYC, I learned to make my own cookies and ice cream, and since then, I don't buy them at the store anymore, but there were some cookies that I especially liked - Walker's Shortbread - delicious with no fake ingredients, just lots of butter to make them "sandy," Pepperidge Farm Bordeaux Cookies, best served with Haagen Dazs Coffee Ice Cream, extra good with a few whole blueberries on top, and Nabisco Ginger Snaps, which were almost savory rather than sweet. Occasionally, at dinner parties I serve Haagen Dazs Ice Cream Bars after dinner. They are individually wrapped, ready to hand out. Everyone was like a little kid getting something from the ice cream truck. I didn't offer choices, or I would have had too many varieties to buy and then too many hanging around the freezer after my company went home. I just got my favorite, vanilla ice cream covered in dark chocolate. 

Just yesterday I was told that Pearl Oyster Bar in New York City is closing because it didn't survive the pandemic! I have not seen this information anywhere on line so I hope it's simply not true. It was always my recommendation that when you ate there, you choose whatever sounded good to you for dinner - it would be reliably delicious - but then for dessert go straight for the chocolate mousse, which is the best – the very best – chocolate mousse I have ever had. Unfortunately, Rebecca Charles, the owner of Pearl, did not put the recipe for this mousse in her lovely memoir, Lobster Rolls and Blueberry Pie, but I have come pretty close with Ailene's Chocolate Mousse. Should Pearl be really, regrettably gone (which I hope is NOT the case), this recipe will become even more important. 

2 comments:

  1. I live for the Cadbury Milk bar. And Cadbury Flake. Gotta have Flake on ice cream. It should be a rule.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, Eb,

    Never tried Flake on ice cream but will give it a go. Glad to know someone else likes Cadbury's Dairy Bar.

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