May 24, 2012

My dearest,

It was a dark and stormy night.

No, that’s not right. It was an afternoon when we dropped by your boss’s house. It was raining, so I guess it was sort of stormy. Why brave the downpour, one might ask. We were there for the tiramisu, of course.

Wayne’s an Italian-Australian who cooks in his spare time and shares his results with his friends. The best kinda boss. And this afternoon home-made tiramisu was on the menu. Now we’ve had our fair share of tiramisu all over the city but never thing really matches the real thing we’ve had in Italy. Too pretty, too neat, and usually not alcoholic enough. Nothing like a big ladle full of the dessert dropped into a bowl without much fanfare — now that was the real thing.

Would we get the real thing at Wayne’s?

Well, the first sign wasn’t encouraging. He didn’t have any mascarpone cheese so he used cream cheese instead. Wayne did use Marsala wine cos that’s what his mom used and even showed us the half-empty bottle, as though to prove to us his concoction would not want for alcoholic enhancement. That was a ray of hope.

Plenty of espresso coffee went in too, he promised us. We are caffeine addicts so our spirits perked up at that. Finally Wayne delivered two bowls of his dessert into our eagerly awaiting hands. A big bowl in our palms, a wet mess evenly dusted with cocoa powder. We dug in with our spoons. Spoons into mouths. And we closed our eyes.

“Damn,” you said.

“Damn,” I said.

“That’s good. That’s like…”

“…the best tiramisu in town.”

And we meant it too.

Yours, ever and always.