Cake or Death?

There are people in this world I just don’t trust.

1. 99.99% of its politicians. Even the ones who really, really, really care and solomnly swear they are going to turn things around and fix everything for ever and ever, amen. 'Cause, well, I know they aren't.

2. Katie Couric. It's not her fake tan and creepy screetchy junior high school giggle that give me the willies. It's the fact that I know, just know that woman's hiding something that ain't right. Like a propensity for incest or square dancing.

3. People who don't eat sweets.

You know the type. You're having dinner at some fancy schmancy restaurant, the kind of place where in your opinion the whole point of ordering the parchment steamed Chilean sea bass with baby lettuces and a spritz of lemon essence is to save your calories for dessert, and when this piled-high tray of utter lusciousness finally makes its way to your table, you do what any normal person would do and that is coolly calculate how many bazillion miles you'll have to run on the treadmill tomorrow in order to imbibe the Triple Death by Chocolate Cake with Grand Mariner Ganache and that honkin' slice of Key Lime pie, but your companion, she waves a dismissive hand over the entire lot and sends it away. And then has the audacity to turn to you with a condescending sniff of her pert little nose and report, "I don't do dessert; I'd much prefer more broccoli."

Can you imagine, the utter, barren, arid desert that must be this person's appetite?

I shudder at the thought.

Because since girlhood I have been compiling a list of coveted sweets that is by now so ginormous, I'll be on my treadmill until the day I die.

Here's just a smattering of reasons why:

1. Divinity. Gawd, I know it's so redneck but come on, admit it, there is nothing like this stuff. Anywhere. In the entire universe. And you know it.

2. Pralines. See reason #1.

3. Dunkin' Donuts. Krispy Kreme is for pussies. And you know that, too.

4. Napoleons. I grudgingly admit French superiority in two things: cheese and pastries. And Napoleons are the ne plus ultra of Frenchified sweets. Luckily, I don't have to travel to France to get one.

4. Creme brule. 'bout the only thing the culinarily handicapped Brits got right.

5. Carrot cake. Well, really, the frosting. But eating frosting without the cake is just kind of silly, isn't it? Come on, isn't it?

So, I'm curious: what sweet things do you covet? You can tell me. If you do, I might even bake them for you.