Crème Brûlée (for Two)

Valentine's Day. The first one since the diagnosis. Marvin did not give me a card this year. He did not remember that it was Valentine's Day. I realized this when I came downstairs on the morning of February fourteenth and found him reading the newspaper — he still reads the newspaper, though I am not sure how much of it he retains — and there was no card on the table, no card by my coffee cup, no card anywhere. The drawer has thirty-six cards. There will not be a thirty-seventh.

I did not mention it. I kissed his forehead. I made his breakfast. I poured his coffee. I said nothing about Valentine's Day because saying it would have confused him, or worse, made him aware that he had forgotten, and the awareness of forgetting is its own cruelty, a second wound on top of the first.

I made brisket. Our Valentine's tradition. The tradition that has survived thirty-six years and will survive the thirty-seventh even without a card, because the brisket does not require a card, the brisket is the card, the brisket is the "I love you" that I will keep saying in the language Marvin can still understand: food. He can still taste. He can still eat. He can still say, "This is good, Ruthie." He can still hold a fork. The disease has not taken eating from him. Not yet. And as long as he can eat my brisket, I will make it, on Valentine's Day and every other day, because feeding him is the last fluent language between us, and I will speak it until there are no words left.

I wrote nothing for the blog this week. The words are too close to the bone. Some weeks I can write about Marvin with the literary distance of an essayist, shaping the pain into paragraphs, crafting the grief into something that readers can hold. This week I cannot. This week the pain is raw, unshapable, the pain of a woman looking at an empty spot on the table where a Valentine's card should be and understanding — in the body, not just the mind, in the body — that the cards are over. The handwriting that charted thirty-six years of love, one card at a time, has written its last Valentine's card, and I did not know it was the last one when I read it, and if I had known, I would have held it longer, read it slower, memorized every word.

The drawer has thirty-six cards. I reread the last one tonight. "Ruthie — 36 years. You are the best decision I ever made. Love, Marv." It will have to be enough. It is enough. It is everything.

The brisket is Marvin’s, and it always will be — our language, our tradition, the thing I will make for as long as he can hold a fork. But I wanted to offer you something you could make this Valentine’s Day for whoever sits across from you at your own table, something small and luminous and built entirely for two. Crème brûlée has always struck me as an honest dessert: it is soft underneath, and there is a moment of resistance at the top that you have to break through to reach the sweetness. That felt right this week.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 3 hours (includes 2 hours chilling) | Servings: 2

Ingredients

4 large egg yolks
1/4 cup granulated sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for topping
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of fine salt

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Heat oven to 325°F. Place two 6-ounce ramekins in a small baking dish or roasting pan. Bring a kettle of water to a boil.
Whisk the custard base. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and 1/4 cup sugar until the mixture is pale yellow and slightly thickened, about 2 minutes.
Heat the cream. Pour the heavy cream into a small saucepan and set over medium heat. Warm until the cream just begins to steam and small bubbles form around the edges — do not let it boil. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and salt.
Temper and combine. Slowly pour the warm cream into the egg yolk mixture in a thin, steady stream, whisking constantly to prevent the yolks from scrambling. Pour through a fine-mesh strainer into a spouted measuring cup for easy pouring.
Fill and bake in a water bath. Divide the custard evenly between the two ramekins. Pour the boiling water into the baking dish until it reaches halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Carefully transfer to the oven and bake 40 to 45 minutes, until the custard is just set at the edges but still has a gentle wobble in the center.
Chill. Remove the ramekins from the water bath and let cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours, or up to 2 days.
Brûlée the tops. When ready to serve, blot any condensation from the surface of the custard with a paper towel. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar evenly over each ramekin. Using a kitchen torch, move the flame in slow, steady circles until the sugar melts, bubbles, and turns a deep amber. Allow the caramelized crust to harden for 1 to 2 minutes before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Crème Brûlée (for Two) — The Valentine’s Table That Still Had Two Seats