“Can I tempt you?”

I was recently in Tucson, dining solo at the excellent Southwestern bistro, Tito & Pep, meaning I had ordered enough food for two owing to enthusiasm alone. As I leaned back from the ravaged remains of grilled Idaho trout with crispy garlic, server Brit Bedford sidled over with the dessert menu. 

“Can I tempt you?” she said archly. Her current fixation, she announced, was the silky buttermilk panna cotta set afloat in puckering passionfruit syrup with pineapple compote and fresh raspberries. 

“Oh, I couldn’t,” I demurred. “I’m so full.” 

Undeterred, she went on to paint a deliciously naughty image of me, peckish, a few hours later in my hotel room, stealing velvet mouthfuls of panna cotta with my face aglow in the blueish light of the mini fridge. (Was I wearing a satin neglegé that I did not own in the scene I conjured in my mind? Possibly.) 

Unable to resist such linguistic foreplay, I caved, ate exactly two bites of that luscious milk jello and packed the rest to go.