The Depths of Indulgence

Does anyone remember Helen Hokinson? She was a prolific New Yorker staff cartoonist, who drew society women - matrons and dowagers - whose corseted figures were more substantial than their intellects. Their maids wore little white caps and large white aprons with butterfly wings, and their furniture fairly quivered with emotion. Alas, Hokinson died in a freak airplane accident in 1949 when she was in her mid-fifties, but she left a trove of cartoons and covers that the magazine continued to publish.

I thought of her the other day when I stared glumly at the biscotti set out for me, while everyone else at the table was eating chocolate layer cake. Biscotti, zweiback for grownups, are better than no dessert at all, but not by much. As I bit into a piece, I remembered a sublime 20 minutes that occurred not so long ago, and that memory led to another one, that of a Hokinson cartoon. It shows two amply proportioned ladies of a certain age standing in front of a pastry shop, as one says to the other, "Let's just go in and see what happens."

It was a windy midweek day in March, and I was early for an appointment to pick up my grandson from his school, when I approached a Haagen Dazs shop. Many a time had I passed it, many a time had I walked by without entering, without even looking inside. But this time I faltered and stopped in front of the shop. Unlike Hokinson's ladies, I knew just what would happen if I walked in.

As I stood in front of the shop I recalled a poster that I had seen years before in another Haagen Dazs shop: "Plunge into the depths of indulgence." Taking a deep breath, I entered the shop, ordered a dish of vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce, took the concoction to the counter next to the shop's plate glass window, and sat down. The dessert looked perfect, with the proper amount of caramel sauce - not so much as to overwhelm the ice cream but not too little either. It wouldn't be like those disappointing sundaes my wife and I once ordered. They didn't come with enough caramel sauce, so that we were forced to eat the last remaining ice cream unadorned. "Not disgusting enough," pronounced my wife. But on that windy Tuesday in March, my dish of indulgence looked exactly disgusting enough.

With uncharacteristic restraint, I consumed it slowly. I wanted to prolong my pleasure as long as possible, since I figured I was unlikely to plunge into the depths of indulgence again for a long time. So I ate small spoonfuls, carefully coating each slippery bit of cold vanilla ice cream with a touch of smooth caramel sauce and savoring each small mouthful as I did so. For once in my life, every single spoonful tasted as good as the first. At the end, my only regret was that all the spoonfuls had gone. Did the Devil make me walk into that shop? If so, he can't be all bad.

Does anyone doubt that Hokinson's ladies will enter that patisserie to see what happens? When they do, I hope that what happens is marvelously rich. I hope they consume it slowly, letting each morsel linger on their tongue, so that later, when they are denied such pleasures, they can look back on their indulgence with as much fondness as I do mine. For I was right about the unlikelihood of repeating the experience. I never again ordered that treat. Each time temptation beckoned, I managed to resist. But now all fatty foods, including premium ice cream, give me severe heartburn, in spite of the substantial doses of anti-reflux prescription medicine that I take to combat it.

Still, if I can't repeat the experience, nothing can stop me from recalling it. Remembering it is not as good as eating it, true. Nonetheless, the memory consoles me: 'tis better to have tasted once than never to have tasted at all. Remembrance, even though mixed with longing, gives me pleasure. Besides, it's calorie free.