Desserts

Many people are happy to finish a meal with cheese, especially if a red wine other than that served with the principal course has been chosen to accompany the cheese platter. For others, a glass or two of a fine Sauternes, unaccompanied, is welcome and sufficient food and drink at the end of a meal. Fresh fruit is a good dessert. In season, fresh strawberries, peaches, or figs (the latter peeled, a cross cut into the upper part of each, pinched open like a baked potato and well chilled), coated with a raspberry purée (fresh or deep-frozen raspberries passed either through a nylon drum sieve with a pastry cook’s come or plastic disc or through a stainless steel sieve with a wooden pestle and sweetened to taste) are a perfect dessert; peeled fresh almonds may be scattered on top or whipped cream diluted with raspberry purée served on the side. (The acidity may, to some extent, interfere with the perfect analytical appreciation of an accompanying Sauternes). Or one’s glass of red wine filled with fresh strawberries or sliced peaches, sugar-sprinkled, will terminate a meal in beauty.