Dessert for Lunch

Dessert is a pretty weird concept in general, I think.

I like it, don't get me wrong. I will snarf down a cheesecake along with the best of them. But it seems to me that the very concept of dessert is just a remnant of childhood bribery. It begins as a way to get kids to eat their vegetables, a shiny, sugary beacon at the top of a mountain of broccoli; and from there it evolves into an all-purpose threat for general misbehaviour ("No dessert for you!"). This is the dining equivalent of global nuclear armament.



As an adult, this idea loses a large amount of it's relevence. A five-year-old loves ice-cream more than it loves Spicy Cous-Cous for three reasons:

a) Because five-year-olds have no education.
b) Children are scared of things that are new, and most desserts are generally pretty samey, therefor familiar.
c) Purely because the dessert is dangled as an inaccessible reward. With the proper conditioning, the same effect could probably be achieved with toothpaste.

[Note: I am a childless curmudgeon. These theories are untested.]



The point is, now that we are grown-ups, we are in control of our own dessert intake. I get to make the choice. That's kind of a powerful idea. As an adult, I have financial concerns, and if I'm eating in a restuarant the choice is often between an extra bottle of wine or pudding. I will let you guess which wins, and draw your own assumptions about me based upon that.

So, although as I have said, I like dessert, I don't often manage to get too pumped up about it. Especially as by the time it usually rolls around, I'm not hungry anymore.

But picture this:



It's lunchtime. You really are hungry. You can eat the above, or make an executive adult decision and go for this:



Not every day mind, but once in a blue moon, dessert for lunch really works. It's a flashy visual display with no nutrional value, but it feels pretty kinky right? In a good way.
It's eating outside of the box yo.

Your hunger will be satisfied, you will have asserted your dominance within the social set, and your soul will remain well-fed until dinner.

I'm a bad man.