Celebrating a decadent indulgence

Meditation on a $16 dessert

Let me tell you about the dessert I had last night. This chocolate torte was a masterpiece, both a sight to behold and a divine tasting experience, literally one of the richest most delicious things I’ve ever eaten.

It’s served at Birmingham’s exquisite Automatic Seafood and Oysters, an award-winning restaurant recognized for fresh caught and expertly prepared seafood, but good Lord, this dessert is the best I’ve had in town.

I don’t say that lightly. Desserts, especially chocolate ones, are my ultimate sensory pleasure. They make me giddy, dizzy with excitement, but I also spend time thinking and learning about them. I enjoy making them as well, but especially eating them. Especially when they are really really really good. And people, this one is life changing.

Here’s how it’s listed on the menu: Flourless Chocolate Torte. Blood orange ganache, hazelnuts, feuilletine, chocolate shortbread crumb, chocolate malt ice cream.

They had me at flourless chocolate, but blood orange ganache? Be still my beating heart. I felt my pulse speed up as I read the description in the dessert menu, my belly already full of crispy snapper, cornbread crusted oysters and smoked fish dip with homemade crackers. Not to mention several glasses of a French Sauvignon Blanc.

This was a celebratory dinner with UAB friends and colleagues after I gave a presentation on the podcast I made last year. Eight of us enjoyed this sumptuous dinner together, and after several hours of delicious food, wine and conversation, none of us waved off the dessert menu. At that point of the evening, why not?

Sitting to my left was Kiffen, husband of wonderful professor and writer-friend Kerry Madden-Lunsford, who was seated across from us, married couples divided up around the round table. Kiffen conspiratorially agreed to split the chocolate torte with me, cancelling his modest order of blackberry sorbet.

Our torte arrived to ooo’s and aaaah’s, a much grander presentation than the other orders—a slice of key lime pie, a wedge of banana custard cake. I snapped a photo and we dug in.

First, the chocolate. It’s dark and dense, the best kind. Rich and deep, it walks right up to the line of bitter, but not quite. And paired with the blood orange ganache, BLOOD ORANGE GANACHE Y’ALL, the mix of earthen dark silky chocolate and sweet sticky orange is absolutely sensational.

Each bite contained so many textures—an exquisite crunch inside the creaminess. I looked at Kiffen, who was chewing slowly with his eyes closed, as if in a trance.

“What are the crunchy things?” I whispered.

“Hazelnuts,” he replied, not opening his eyes.

I later googled feuilletine, which is a “crispy confection made from thin, sweetened crêpes.” That explains the snap crackle pop like texture intertwined with the more distinct crunch of hazelnuts. This dessert boasts not one, but two crunchy elements.

All that gorgeous texture inside creamy dark chocolate, combined with the cold chocolate malt ice cream, the orange ganache, topped with tender slices of fresh orange. I can die now. It was pure heaven.

You may think food intentionally designed to be beautiful, or instagram worthy, is pretentious, and this dessert is, it cost $16 (!!!!), the most expensive item on the dessert menu. But it is also sublime and surprising, blending multiple textures and flavors so each bite plays across the tastebuds like a symphony. This is what my friend Marna Davis calls “party in my mouth food.”

This indulgence at the end of a very good day personally and professionally felt somewhat subversive, like what kind of privileged princess orders the most expensive dessert? But also such a welcome rush of pure pleasure in a week where the news, both in Alabama and nationally, is enough to make you scream and weep at the same time.

Maybe it’s better to rage bake in these times. Or find something gorgeous to luxuriate in, savor and remember. I’ve been thinking of this dessert all day, like a teenaged crush, or an old lover. The next time I visit Automatic Seafood, if I am so lucky, I will wistfully linger over the dessert menu, and maybe I’ll order it again. But I know it will never be as good as the first time.