The hostess keeps many a sharp arrow in her quiver. Cheerful salad. Dependable vinaigrette. Triumphant roast. Should she snap a string, stumble mid-shot, or miss the mark, all will be forgiven by way of chocolate cake.
By cake she does not mean some imposing tower crusted with sugar roses. Nor earnest layer cake. She means a stealth contraption, low and humble. A cake that’s simple to prepare and simply adorned. So unassuming it might seem an afterthought, or French. Sliced and savored, its aim is true: pure chocolate pleasure.
She once possessed such a recipe. She came by it so casually—mail from Mom—that she failed to grasp its value. In the Spartan splendor of her first apartment, she stirred together its few ingredients. Her roommates salaamed.
Then—predictably—she lost it. In the words of the ancient ballad, she would never have that recipe again. Oh, no.
Which is why she is doomed to search.
She has fallen for fake: the catalog come-on that promises bold flavor in a flimsy box. She’s suffered confusion, presuming “flourless” to mean “good.” She’s puzzled over the molten mess served with spoon, and the sturdy puck served with fork and saw.
She presses on, sifting flour, separating eggs, stirring ganache.
Eventually she comes across a pleasing version. Not the original, but close. She keeps the cookbook at hand, armed for the dinner-party emergency.
And she continues her quest. She’s grown accustomed to the heroine’s plight: to loss, to perseverance, and, endlessly, to hope.
