An Evening in Paris

My nephew has been living with epilepsy for at least the past five years. (He's 11.) My brother in law is co-chair of a dinner to benefit an epilepsy foundation in this area, and the dinner always features a dessert table like the one shown above (that's this year's, the theme was An Evening in Paris and you can see the ice sculpture is the Eiffel tower).

The table is loaded with chocolate desserts of every kind. I really mean it, EVERY kind imaginable. Mousses and tortes and petit fours ... well, you get the idea.

The funny thing is that I really don't LIKE chocolate all that much. I like strawberries dipped in chocolate. I like a little square of very good chocolate now & then.

I amuse myself by watching the other guests at this dinner. Wealthy, fabulous beautiful people RUSHING to get into line and nearly panick stricken that the particular gob of chocolate they had their eye on will be snapped up by someone else. Honestly, you'd think that chocolate was becoming extinct.

I get a little bit queasy watching people walking around with three or four huge slabs of chocolate-y things mounded on their tiny little dessert plates.

There is always more than enough to go around, with plenty of slices of various cakes still left over. Later in the evening the scavengers get pieces of foil from the kitchen and creep around the table, scooping up the bedraggled remnants of cakes. I saw one woman who had somehow gotten the kitchen to give her THREE of the boxes that the desserts had been delivered in. Get out much??

I don't wait in line, (I go up to the table a few minutes later) but I always manage to get a few strawberries and a slice of plain cheesecake that has somehow found its way onto the table (donated by someone who knew that there would be SOMEONE like me at the dinner who didn't want the other stuff)- thank you, whoever you are!