Telephone conversation, a few years back:

"Hi honey. I just wanted to tell you I had my first Krispy Kreme. Oh. My. God."...Pete, my husband.

"You had a Krispy Kreme?"...me, sad, rejected puppy dog voice.

"Two, actually. They're amazing."...hubby again.

Click.

He was supposed to wait for me. He ate his first Krispy Kreme without me. It was a huge event for Krispy Kreme to finally come to San Diego, on the opposite side of the country from which the air-like, sugary, American phenomena hailed.

And he didn't wait for me to experience it with him.

Betrayal, nothing short of it.

I got over that...after he took me to Krispy Kreme, a half hour drive from our home. I ate two original glazed before we were out of the drive-thru. I understood what everyone was talking about...starting with hubby. "Told you," he said, bravely. "Don't let it happen again," I said with my mouth full, glazed sugar on my face similar to the way a baby wears mushed peas on its chin.

Then hubby and I discovered chocolate souffles at Roy's, that would be Roy Yamaguchi, at his restaurant that is reminiscent of the Islands. We made the longer drive to his restaurant for a anniversaries, birthdays, Valentine's Day dinners. A friend of mine called it a "dessert destination". This is true...if you want the chocolate souffle for dessert, you have to tell your server right when you order dinner, or you won't get it.

We have never found chocolate souffle at any other high-end, upscale restaurant or dessert cafe we have gone to...we have eaten pots de creme, molten chocolate cake, chocolate lava cake, chocolate brownie cake, all unappetizing compared to a chocolate souffle. So as we only enjoyed it on special occasions, it became our "thing" to have them together.

This weekend my husband went to Arizona with my father and his buddy to visit my stepson, Dillon. My hubby, Dad and his buddy Roger stayed at the Biltmore (it's a golf thing) and decided to have dinner there last night.

Whenever my parents travel and enjoy a particularly innovative or flavorful meal, I get the standard call from my father taunting me about the food he got to eat, and I missed out on. So when the call came in 7:00pm California time, I expected it to be my Dad.

"Hi honey," said hubby. "Guess what I had at dinner?"

"Steak?", which is what I expected four guys to eat, with no wives or mothers present.

"No, chocolate souffle! They had chocolate souffle!"

Click.

I lay in bed last night with envy, wedged in between three kids who all seem to end up sleeping not next to, but on top of, Momma. He's eating chocolate souffle. I'm watching Nickelodeon. The kids don't even have the decency to fall asleep so I can watch Eric Bana in Munich on digital cable. This is perfect.

Hubby called me this morning while playing golf. "This is culinary infidelity. You ate a chocolate souffle without me," I said, giving three kids a bath, watching them drink bath water as if it were Coca-Cola. "Culinary infidelity - I like that." He gratifies my creative segues and tangents, smartly. But he still broke our husband-wife dessert law.

"I thought about you the whole time," he adds.  How can he say that? He's calling my bluff, I hate - no - love it when he does that. He so gets me. His voice, when he plays along, is chocolate-y...not too sweet, not bitter, just right.

I'll forgive him, again, becaue I just can't help it. And in his defense, according to my father, as he read off every item on the menu, said, "I wish Sami were here for this, she would love the food here." That could just be the whole appease-the-father-in-law-thing. Then again, it verifies his alibi of thinking of me as he indulged in culinary infidelity. He was thinking of me. He loves me. And would I have done the same thing, tempted by irrestistible, steaming dark chocolate topped with confectioner's sugar, so elusive in fine restaurants, the perfect ending to a steak dinner?

Faster than you can say Prince Hector.