dessert

This past Christmas my family and I continued our tradition of eating dinner at Doubles the day after our Christmas party. Doubles is a restaurant on fifty ninth and fifth. Unlike most restaurants, Doubles i located underground, with no windows, only mirrors. The highlight of the Christmas dinner at Doubles is the desert table. A the center of the dinning room, which is normally a dance floor, is a table piled high with all kinds of fancy christmas dessert. There is christmas Yule Log, blows of chocolate and vanilla moose, Lemon meringue over a foot high, different cakes, ice creams, and just about everything else. The menu, on the other hand, had two options for starters, salads, and main courses. Why the focus on desert?
After that dinner I started to think about how much focus is placed in the sweeter side of dinner. Whenever I eat out with my family my mother always looks at the desert menu first. When my sisters look up a restaurant for us to go to, the desert menu must be approved for us to go there. It might just be my family, but Mrs. Pigglewiggle seemed to have it right going desert first.
What is it about sweet frosting covered greatness that drives my family's dinner conversation as soon as the main courses are cleared? Personally, I feel that desert is the center of my family's food universe because we have to order one thing for every person at the table, regardless of if you "Can't eat another bite." Even after the most savage meal that leaves you noxious at the thought of another bite, at my family's table, you MUST eat. Our typical desert forces feeding frenzy starts with everyone looking at the menus and waiting for my mom to tell us what were going to have. Once the orders are put we all talk about the food we are about to get, trying to anticipate which plate will be the best. When the food arrives everyone plasters on a smile and dives in. You take your plate, eat your fill, then pass it on. Even though no one can fit anything more, we keep at it. No one leaves until the plates are clean.
Though this food stuffing session sounds awful, it has some how made dessert the most important part of any meal. By making our belts grow apart, we, as a family, grow closer.