Eat Dessert

About author / Victoria Wesseler

Healthy eating advocate; master gardener; local food expert. Even veggie haters love her recipes.

"Should we order dessert?" I asked my mother as we scanned the menu the waiter handed me. We were enjoying our Saturday shopping and lunch afternoon at a favorite Italian restaurant and although we generally didn't order dessert when we went out, my mother decided that on this particular day that we should. "Life is short," she said, "let's get dessert." Indeed, life was to be all too short and a week later to that day she would be gone from my life. The surgeon would tell me and our family not to worry as they wheeled her to the operating room; that it was going to be a routine surgery. But it was far from routine.

If we are very blessed we get to enjoy our parents as adult friends. When my mother passed away during that "routine" surgery I was 40. I had the privilege of knowing her as a woman and as my best friend. And when we would go shopping and out to lunch every other Saturday, I got to hear her stories. I especially liked the one about how she met my father. She was 22 years old, engaged and sitting in a local deli with the woman who was to be her maid of honor in the upcoming wedding. My father walked in the door and she caught a glimpse of him in the mirror next to the booth where she and Tillie were sitting. According to her story, she quickly slipped off her engagement ring, tossed it into the bottom of her purse and told her friend that she was going to marry the man in the mirror. She broke off her engagement that evening, got the restaurant owner to introduce them and the rest is history.

My mother Isabelle was a bright, dark haired beauty of Italian descent who went to college for one year and then dropped out because according to her father "nice girls got married and had babies, they didn’t go to college." She got a job making tennis shoes in a factory. Her day job left little time for fancy cooking and most of our meals were plain, simple food with a lot of it coming from cans and boxes as were many home cooked meals in the 50s and 60s.

But every so often on Saturdays in the summer when I was in grade school my mom would make what I thought was the most wonderful dessert—ice box cake. She would put it in the refrigerator and let it sit for a day before she served it at Sunday supper. To me, those 24 hours seemed like an eternity. But my patience was rewarded with a big gooey slab of what I thought was, and still is, the best dessert on this planet.

On Mother's Day, if you are lucky enough to still have that special lady present in your life, hold her close, listen to her stories and cherish the brief time that we are given with each other on this earth. And if she has gone ahead, close your eyes, see her face, hear her voice and be thankful for the memories. And have dessert that day.

There’s no denying it, life really is very short.

Serves/Makes: 8

• 2 boxes (5.9 ounce size) chocolate pudding (NOT instant) *
• 6 cups whole milk *
• 1 box (15 ounce size) plain graham crackers
• 4 ripe bananas sliced 1/2 inch thick (more if desired)
• canned whipped cream