my arms are covered in bruises. perhaps this is how inner turmoil manifests itself, on the outside. the most gruesome one at the moment – since the original matching set on the inner edge of each elbow, from scaling a wall a week ago, faded — is the one with the sharp, slightly blistered burn surrounded by a purple blossom of bruised tissue. that one was from lowering my forearm onto the rim of a pot while boiling pasta, and mysteriously, it does not hurt at all. there are two others, on the inside, and outside, of my upper arm, which i assume came from walking into ill-placed doorhandles, and i do that once or twice a day, so they’re nothing special.

but let’s talk about bruises that matter.

sigh.

just past sunday noontime, we met deborah in the narrow corridor of adriano zumbo patissier, to procure supplies for our luncheon picnic. you may recall, we attempted such a picnic months ago, to herald the spring, and were rained out (or, in, as the case proved to be). despite the steady light drizzle, our summer picnic barreled on; we were defiant!

i’d been thinking about the scuro all week. from the original zumbo lineup, it’s been revived for the december best-of collection. i have no recollection of it in the early days; back then it was all about the macaron. but to see it, this manly slab of flourless chocolate biscuit, and mousse, and layers of assorted caramel concoctions… in my head, it was a dense and sticky thing.

so it was a surprise when we popped open the cakebox in the park to discover that scuro had swooned like a lady. fallen with such force, actually, that it had embedded itself into the passionfruit tart beside it. it was not too warm out, and we had not swung the carry bag, so who knows what happened. perhaps it went insane with desire? the tart is rather ravishing after all.

and ravish it we did. the crisp pastry shell, the rich filling that filled our mouths with a warm passionfruity glow. the vibrant technicolor sunset across the top of it was contained within a barely-there layer of gelatin, but even that was enough to give a welcome, wobbly edge to the passionfruit creme below. this one, deborah had been thinking about for months, and i would say it was not at all a disappointment. deborah?

the scuro was much more delicate than i had imagined, quite light for something so dark. i especially liked the cakey bits, drenched in chocolatey juices, and the very pleasant burnt caramel flavour in the mysterious foamy middle layer. and it did my head in, in the end; i can no longer sit down and eat and endless quantity of quality dark chocolate, without suffering dizziness or a turn in my gut, but with the scuro, i was compelled to keep eating until it was gone.

i will not tell you how we ate it, this collapsed ruin of a cake, but just know that deborah, the kid, and i have eaten together enough times over the last two years that we had no qualms about seeing each other like that. spoonless (zumbo had run out that day). with crude (though genius!) shovels fashioned from the cardboard bases of our pastries.

it was not all depravity, of course. we had real food to start. mine was quiche! and i never order the quiche. but this one had been giving me the eye every time i walked in the shop, and finally i bit. sue, she is called, filled with spinach, goat’s cheese and blueberries.

the pastry was still crisp, and the one real fear i have about quiche filling — that it will be a mouthful of eggy-cheesy-eggy — never materialised. they were serious about the spinach. look at it! a great knot of greenery. the goat cheese was mild, and the blueberries not at all discordant, and i would love to try this again, warm out of the oven, and with a knife handy to make sense of the clump of spinach.

and that, folks, is the last zumbo post for a little while. in a sudden turn of events, i suddenly lucked into a plane ticket to london (and a train ticket to paris). lucky for the 12 hour overnight transit at changi airport, and the freezing cold that awaits me. and lucky, really, for the sister at the other end of the planes and trains and automobiles.

i leave in two days, and i have not begun packing. i have yet to buy me some of that expensive european money, and a piece of beautiful hand luggage, and travel insurance. at least i managed to buy two polypro skivvies at the adventure shop sale yesterday. i still have print deadlines to attend to – just, and the house is a mess. i am so clenchy, and the tightness in my throat, and the knot in my stomach…

but you know what else awaits me? cake. by god, will there be cake. and falafel.

if it turned out to be the kind that’s green on the inside, that would be just tops.