The Dessert Lady's Conundrum

Source

I am the dessert lady for one of my women's groups tonight. This is a responsibility of almost overwhelming proportions. It isn't because these ladies are judgmental or unappreciative--on the contrary, they are unfailingly enthusiastic no matter what is put on the tiny plates they must balance in their laps.

"Oh, wow!" they will say. "I do love crushed potato chips with sausage gravy. You always know exactly the right thing to top off a meeting."

No, no, no, I'm kidding. With crushed potato chips you serve cheese sauce, not sausage gravy. But what I'm saying is that these women are lovely and gracious.

At the House on the Corner, though, we rarely have dessert. There's a box of juice bars in the freezer for when I'm peckish in the evening, and Husband has ice cream sandwiches because he can't stand the teeth-in-ice sensation that the juice bars require. But cakes and pies? Those just don't happen unless we have company. Being the dessert lady, then, is my rare opportunity to make the very best of these fat-packed delights and not have it hang around in the refrigerator to taunt me while I'm trying to be rational about my food choices.

My Pinterest dessert board is the non-parallel universe for rational food choices, and that's where I turned for inspiration. The cumulative calorie count of these entries would feed a small country for several weeks if they could be translated into actual food. There's Chocolate Lasagne, Blueberry Pie, and Apple Galette. Hot Cocoa Souffle With Coffee Ice Cream, and Brownie Cookie Pie.

I could make that one! No, that one! Chocolate! Lemon! Rhubarb! They all look so delicious--choose meeeeee! To make matters worse, I was trying to decide at 5:15 p.m. so that I could dash to the store for supplies after work, right at the moment my blood sugar is lowest and my dessert resistance weakest.

And that's why tonight instead of a light and tangy lemon yogurt cake we're having Vanilla Pecan Pie. It is a pie crust, topped by a layer of cheesecake, followed by a layer of pecan pie. Oh, and real whipped cream. With caramel sauce.

I'm betting right now the ladies will like this even more than crushed potato chips with cheese sauce OR sausage gravy. Or at least they will say they do.