Dear Elspeth,

After years of disappointing dating, I’ve met a wonderful woman who makes my heart sing and my knees buckle. But, of course, no one is a picture perfect exemplar of our sincerest fantasies, and she does have one itty bitty preference — make that a craving— that I am finding challenging: she’s a food fetishist. She cannot find carnal satisfaction with me unless, when she enters my bed chamber, I am slathered with some sort of food that turns her on.  

My dilemma is due to her inability to describe to me what foods turn her on. She explained that she knows from experience that any food that works for her never works twice (she told me only one man, a chef, was able to satisfy her for any length of time, but he left her for a plushophiliac).  

She informed me about her sitophilia on our fourth date and, for our next liaison she told me to leave my apartment door unlocked and she would find me in my bed where I should have the chosen food on my belly. She assured me that, if the food was right, she would take care of the rest. But I would have to select the food myself. 

The first time I got lucky with a s’mores gambit. OMG, did I get lucky. 

But not so with my next choice, fluffer nutter (I was going with the marshmallow theme).  Or the next, chocolate mousse with Cool Whip (going with the chocolate theme plus classic bedroom favorite, whipped cream, but the semi-diet brand, in case she was calorie conscious).  In both cases, she was pleasant enough about it, gave me a nice kiss, but that was all, and I could feel her disappointment. 

Stumped, but surmising that smearability was key, I switched to cream cheese, and scored big with my mom’s simple recipe for cream cheese covered pickles. But then last Saturday night’s dip into Mom’s recipe trove — Hawaiian macaroni salad — so offended her senses that she took one sniff and put her clothes back on.

Elspeth, I’m no chef, I can barely make an omelet. And the pressure of choosing the “menu” with so much at stake is stressing me out. But I really dig this splosher!  Any suggestions?—Rubber Bedsheets

Dear Rubber,

I find you and your “problem” to be a dizzying ten-course tasting menu entitled, “Mystery Date,” and where you falter is in understanding that her appetites are ones of the heart, not of the libido.

In other words, she’s seeking tender vittles and you’re presenting a hot dog cart.

Your many attempts to please her speak to her leg-buckling power over you, and so in the interest of young love (I find it hard to believe you are not very young, given these difficulties, as most men gather such pantry staples of understanding at an early age) and ultimate satiation, I hope to unpack your Insta-Cart and give you and Miss Fussy Food a fair chance.

May I suggest that the s’mores took her back to an earlier time in her life, perhaps when a hotblooded 13-year-old boy at summer camp in northern  Minnesota carefully, delicately, pulled off a string of cooled marshmallow striped with melted chocolate from her 12-year-old rosebud lips before kissing them with his own? His breath, perhaps, scented with graham? Of course you got lucky, man! 

The next few missteps with your erstwhile menu make Elspeth’s heart hurt. Fluffer nutter just looks lazy, but you score points for an attempt to replace scalding hot Hershey bars with something imminently more spreadable.

Now, having stared at the cover of Herb Alpert’s 70s-era album “A Taste of Honey” in the throes of questions regarding my sexuality, adult behavior, and a simple screaming adolescent curiosity—“Is she wearing anything at all under that pile of whipped cream?!?!?!?”—I found your next attempt almost swoonworthy. The chocolate mousse? Out of the park.

The reduced-calorie Cool Whip? 

The smell of that would have sent any woman who ever had a diet-conscious mother over the edge with scorn and fury. Were you making a judgement about your darling chef’s shape or form? Was her mother? Was your mother? Do you want her to be naked with you?

I’ve gone cold. As for the cream cheese, lover boy, it’s not blended with pickle. I’m pleased that it went well, but she would have been all over you for pimento cheese.

This cry for help in the Ask Elspeth space makes my own heart flutter. That you reached out speaks very well of your prospects with her. I suggest you try fresh fruit (not melon balls, they simply roll right off) next, and then, a course of brie and water crackers. You want to evoke the present and future for your bride-to-be (or you may have the milk but skip buying the cow). She needs to not only partake of your current delights (you sound delightful) but to also look forward to some full and never-ending meal with you, and by golly, I think you’re just the man to create it.

Always interested in dessert,

Your Elspeth

Dear Elspeth,

I am recovering from a gluten-free crisis that I hope you can address. We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year. The dry-brined turkey pulled a fast one and was done a full hour before guests were due to arrive, but the gluten-free stuffing was a success beyond my wildest imagining. It hasn’t sogged out even six days later.

My difficulty was dessert. I am known around these parts as The Queen of Tarts, so I had a reputation to uphold in addition to my perennial need to present a showstopper. A good friend (whose resemblance to you, Elspeth, is uncanny), talked me out of the four inch deep, freestanding apple pie from The New York Times on the grounds that a gluten-free crust would simply collapse at that height. I combed the web for hours in search of a crust recipe for gluten-free daughters and opted to dress up my pie with a lattice top. One recipe promised that freezing the butter and grating it would bring beautiful results. It did not mention that a person has to prepare for this task with a month of weight-lifiting for strength and of sprinting up and down six flights of stairs for stamina. Another recipe assured me that the secret was keeping the dough chilled, so it was stored in the fridge in between rolling and filling and getting its lattice top. I sliced the apples as thin as humanly possible and boiled down apple cider for sweetener. (Did I mention that one of my girls does not eat sugar?) “America’s Test Kitchen” suggested freezing the lattice strips to make them easier to weave together, so I did that. Good tip.

For all the research and care, after an hour and twenty minutes of baking, my pie was a golden, perfectly woven beauty that we should have stopped short of actually cutting into. The lattice fell apart, the apples were not cooked, the crust was as flaky as the proverbial cardboard. You can imagine how crestfallen I was. Now that Christmas looms, I have to get a grip. What do you recommend for a celebratory dessert that contains no gluten or sugar or dairy (except butter)? Please don’t tell me I should seek out another family. I wouldn’t trade my girls for all the gluten in the world.—Paralyzed

P.S. My husband does not eat chocolate.

Dear Paralyzed,

You are one courageous woman to take on gluten-free, low-sugar, no-chocolate desserts. How lucky is your family! The photo you sent was certainly a centerpiece, if not the edible success you wished. First, I admire that you try recipes for the very first time when so much is riding on them. I don’t really understand all the moving parts in any recipe until I’ve made it a few dozen times, and seen firsthand what a little more xanthan gum or a little less sugar can do to the chemistry. Sugar is not just a sweetener, but adds bulk.

Second, when you present a favorite, such as apple pie, people cannot taste it objectively. Their memories of apple pies made traditionally set them up for disappointment. People adore my gluten-free scones conditionally, “for a gluten-free scone,” but if I perhaps renamed them “jam holders,” or “knobs,” or “butter biscuits” people might be able to judge them on the merits, instead of in comparison.

Trading in your girls is not an option. A replacement family would arrive, in the spirit of the best folk tales, with a whole new set of challenges that are even more daunting. You’d end up with husband that loves chocolate so much that he simply reeks of it, for example, or leaves smudges on the furniture or the dog, until you—I’m guessing you like chocolate—can’t stand the stuff.

Queen of Tarts, may I recommend my famous shortbread crust made with freshly ground-by-you almond nut flour, which is naturally sweet, and a bit of rice flour, to give it a crispy, sandy texture? You can further sweeten with a brown rice syrup or even a bit of agave (I process it with the butter before adding to the flour, so you can get that lovely cornmeal texture we look for in this kind of dough).


This shortbread has a saltiness that is a very nice base, once baked, for a pecan filling, and then rebaked, or a lemon curd, or a coconut filling with meringue? The lemon filling, like that found in twice baked lemon bars, can be spruced up with lime zest, or bits of dried lavender, and garnished with said lavender and tiny leaves or small branches of thyme.

For a very beautiful and festive dessert, you can bake the crust, then bake the lemon filling, then dollop small buttons of non-dairy whipped cream in a pattern on the lemon surface and place raspberries on the buttons. For even more color, you can put chocolate shavings and chopped green pistachios in small ramekins or silver bowls for family to add or not. We have also made spun sugar strings in straight lines on parchment and placed them in an artful grid, just north of a checkerboard, still south of a Mondrian, for extra crunch, but that may not work for your daughter.

This tart crust is so magical that you can put other batters over it and rebake it, like chocolate chip cookie dough (when he is having a different dessert), or your favorite brownie batter, or fresh raspberries and a gluten-free crumb topping (either all purpose 1:1 gluten-free flour or a nut crumble). I wish you a very happy holidays, Queen, and you are not paralyzed at all. You should email me if you have questions. Love, E.

Dear Elspeth,

I’m a cliché. The holidays make me sad, anxious, and lonely. The only time I feel normal is if I am spending money, as in shopping, going to movies, eating out. I’m happy when I’m outside with friends, but can’t stop comparing myself to others if I’m alone. I see loving couples, smiling families. I know that it can’t be that simple. Why can’t I just give in and enjoy the season?—Chronically Depressed.

Dear Chronically,

If you really believe you are depressed, or if friends or other people who love you have suggested that you are, here’s your project. Call a hotline, or your primary care provider, and get some perspective. Maybe you are, and you need more help that I can offer here. Maybe though, you’re vainly believing you are the center of the universe. Yep. The whole world is perfect and excluding you from all the fun. 

When you are out laughing with a friend, do you look at all the lonely people (a very good line from a Beatles song) and feel superior? Or perhaps you want to scream, “This is right now! I’m not usually this happy!” No. You’re just being. You’re just in the moment and enjoying it. When you’re shopping you are in the moment, and maybe that’s part of why you like it.

Now you have to do this when you’re alone and not spending money. You have to develop the habit of loving the environment you’re in when it’s not a personally social moment, or when you are not shopping or eating out. When I stroll along the lane of Christmas trees, I’m not buying one that day. But I love the scent, and the other people interacting, and I wonder about those poor frozen out-of-towners who run the tree stands. They are not holed up in a Hilton, that’s for sure. I go into Whole Foods or my neighborhood Agata & Valentina even when I don’t need groceries and marvel at the produce, or the smell of the herbs, or just the jostling of strangers in those terrible lines. 

Alone, I walk to neighborhoods I haven’t seen in awhile, and I snap pictures instead of saying to the friend I’m not with, “Did you see that?” It’s a very full day once we look out, instead of in, and see the world neutrally. It’s not a place that is excluding us. Those smiling families are not smug in their happiness. They go home and pay bills and have fights and I bet dinner is a lot more complicated than it is at my house, when gingerbread biscotti and a cup of Irish breakfast tea will power me along through work, or pleasure, reading or TV.

It’s a habit, I promise, which anyone can build, and far easier than most habits. All my pleasures have to be free and now, so to speak, whether it’s restoring my record collection or running a load of laundry, or just dangling some wire over my cat’s head. I think, like lifting weights, these habits have made me less prone to the holiday blues you refer to. I do not wish for a family I do not have. I find friends who need my company as I need theirs, without the baggage families can bring. And I used to remind myself to appreciate certain things, but now I don’t need reminding. I have seen the power of staying in the moment, and it’s pretty wonderful. And if you want to talk in person about this, shoot me another email. Love, E.

Dear Elspeth:

The last time my family had Thanksgiving together was 2016. Since then, we’ve all made other plans each year. Our politics are so divided that we no longer follow each other on FaceBook, and my sister has “blocked” my brother for years. My mother, in her late 80s, is distressed by the friction, but still wants everyone around the table. My father stays in a nursing home, and is not mobile. So, in two short days, we’ll arrive. Do you have suggestions for keeping tempers at bay and conversations light? —Nervous in North Carolina

Dear Nervous in North Carolina:

Puzzles and board games are your only hope. Get there early and set up a card table with a puzzle that has no fewer than 1,000 pieces. Set up another area for playing board games. Put out a pickle jar, or a well-rinsed tin can, and label it with the categories of conversation that are absolutely forbidden. In my family this would be “hair color,” “why do you live in New York?” “weight?” and “are you dating?” Anyone who brings up any of those categories has to put a $1 in the container the first time, $5 the second time, and $10. IOUs are allowed if there is no available ATM. And keep trying. My brother apologized for his vote in 2016, somewhat sheepishly, and I was very moved. Love, E.

Do you have a question for me? If you’re seeking a professional, remember, Podunk was founded on the idea that, like the Olympics, we were amateurs. I’m going to talk to you as if you’re sitting across the table from me, and neither one of us is ever going to utter the word, “legal.” Write me at elspeth@thelittlenewyorkkitchen.com and please know that I will answer as quickly as I can.