Dessert first

Because life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.

Frightful

Because we couldn't resist.

Sweet on sweets

"Traditionally, all Indian desserts are made on top of a stove, whether steamed, simmered, boiled in syrup, toasted, panfried, or deep-fried, or sometimes a combination of all these techniques.

"The popular gulab jamun, for example, is a syrup-soaked fritter about the size of a Ping-Pong ball. Like so many Indian sweets, its ingredients are simple, essentially sugar and milk, but the recipe requires a great deal of precision, technique, and labor - again, like so many of the subcontinent's confections.

"The process begins by making mawa (also known as khoa or khaya), produced by cooking milk over a slow fire for hours to evaporate almost all of its moisture.

"Ideally the result should be fairly dry with a delicate golden color and a taste hinting of caramel. Mawa is used in numerous Indian desserts. (Some cookbook authors suggest substituting milk powder for the mawa, but then all the complexity is lost.)

"Once the mawa is ready, the cook mixes it with flour and more milk or cream, forms the batter into balls, then deep-fries them. Finally, they get a soak in syrup.

"The resulting gulab jamun is part doughnut, part baba rum with a pleasantly bitter edge from the twice-caramelized milk sugars. Most Americans find it too sweet. Indians adore it."

Michael Krondl, in "Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert"

What sugar is

"What sugar is and what it means changes according to where we happen to find it. It's a wholesome ingredient blended into down-home confections or it's the non-nutritive additive dumped into junk food. It's the pure and natural sweetener in fruity retro-chic sodas, or it's the stuff of evil lurking in cereal, baby food, and juice. It's a woman's food, in chocolates and cupcakes. It's a man's food, the stuff of sodas, energy drinks, and nutrition bars.

"It's troubling, these multiple lives. As an equal-opportunity lover of all things sweet, I'd like to think the best of them. I'd like to believe they do no harm when enjoyed in moderation and offer only the most excellent things in life - if not good health exactly, then certainly good spirits, good times, and a sense of freedom that takes us back to our youth. But in reality, the taste of sweet can have positive effects and negative effects depending on the kind we eat, how often we eat it, and what else we're eating with it. Those choices we make color other people's perception of our level of sophistication and our wealth... They highlight the disparities between the haves and the have-nots, and between the strivers and the lucky ones who are already where they want to be."

Joanne Chen, in "The Taste of Sweet: Our Complicated Love Affair with Our Favorite Treats"

Jell-O shot

Because it is the official snack of the state.

Sweet Madeleines

I am not certain how it is pronounced, but the kouing aman from Les Madeleines patisserie and cafe in Salt Lake City is interesting. The French pastry is crispy and buttery, sticky and sugary.

Label us skeptics

A corn syrup by any other name is still artificially sweet.

From The New York Times:

"The Corn Refiners Association, which represents firms that make (high-fructose corn syrup), has been trying to improve the image of the much maligned sweetener with ad campaigns promoting it as a natural ingredient made from corn.

"Now, the group has petitioned the United States Food and Drug Administration to start calling the ingredient 'corn sugar,' arguing that a name change is the only way to clear up consumer confusion about the product."

Happy Harrods

Nor can we resist the food hall (and chocolate Santas) at Harrods.

Fortnum for sure

Nor can we resist the pretty sweets at Fortnum & Mason on Piccadilly.

On Broadway

The stalls run the length of Broadway Market, from Regents Canal on one end to London Fields on the other. We shop on a refreshingly chilly Saturday morning, happy to meet new people and taste new foods. I find I do not mind the light rain. Not at all.

Flying on faith

The line for dinner is interminably long. But I fly on faith. I trust a recommendation from a virtual stranger: Tayyabs in Whitechapel. I learn to let go.

Inside the restaurant, I examine the sweets on display. I practice restraint and resilience; I dodge servers coming and going. I think also about the granola bar in my purse but do not give in yet to hunger.

An hour later, seated finally, with food, glorious food on the table, with lamb, chicken, okra and naan before us, I understand the wait.

Sugar, sugar

"All I ever really want is sugar."

Andy Warhol, who spent time at Serendipity 3 in New York City, something I learn in the gift shop for "Warhol Live," on exhibit through May 17 at the de Young museum in San Francisco.

Was he talking only of sugar, what we bake with? Or was he referring to something more?