Dessert: Destination or distraction?

Some people think the purpose of dinner is dessert. For them, the meal itself is just a boring journey to a lollapalooza of an often chocolate destination.

Others see the journey itself, with its stops along the way at Appetizers, Soup, Main Course and Sides (with perhaps a detour to Cheese Plate), as the important part, with dessert just an add-on at the end.

It is for those folks that Abigail Johnson Dodge wrote her new book, “Desserts 4 Today: Flavorful Desserts with Just Four Ingredients (Taunton Press, $17.95). If you are the kind of person for whom dessert is an afterthought, this book is for you. It will allow you to knock yourself out on dinner while still pleasing those people for whom dessert is the real point.

Now, I happen to be a fan of the two-ingredient dessert: premium ice cream plus warm caramel topping, as long as the topping comes from Fat Toad Farm (fattoadfarm.com). But four ingredients seemed like a doable strategy, and a brief dip into Johnson Dodge's book proves that it is. Notice that the author doesn't promise “easy. With only four ingredients, however, most of her recipes are indeed a cinch. An added bonus: Since you are using only a few ingredients, you can afford for them to be of the highest quality, like pure extracts and high-quality chocolate.

Let the journey begin.

Marialisa Calta is the author of “Barbarians at the Plate: Taming and Feeding the American Family (2005 Perigee). For more information, go to marialisacalta.com.