How Dessert Can Save the World
By M. Clare Haefner | Photos courtesy of the book publishers
Full disclosure: I picked this book by its cover. The colorful frosting in the title caught my eye in an email, and I thought, “This looks fun,” so I decided to read the advance copy.
I’m really glad I did. In Dessert Can Save the World: Stories, Secrets, and Recipes for a Stubbornly Joyful Existence (Harmony, March 2022), author Christina Tosi offers an entertaining look inside her worldview.
The founder of Milk Bar — a bakery famous for cereal milk, extra large cookies, cakes without frosting on the sides and other imaginative creations — lays out why she believes dessert can save the world. “Hope, wonder, indulgence, escape, frosting … dessert has it all,” Tosi writes in the introduction, as she jumps right in with her energetic voice.
Through stories and anecdotes from her life as a young chef to her current success as a CEO of a baking empire — you can find some Milk Bar products at most Target and Whole Foods stores as well as order online — Tosi relates how she came to believe that “the spirit of dessert — the relentless, unflinching commitment to finding or creating joy even when joy feels hard to come by — can save us, and then we, in turn, can save the world.”
Like many of us, Tosi was shaped by her family, including her mom, Greta, an accountant who has made it her mission in life to deliver unexpected moments of cheer to others, even people she’d just met. Through her mom’s example, Tosi learned how doing something to celebrate others brought joy and built a sense of camaraderie. Her grandmothers instilled a love of baking, and as soon as she was allowed to use the oven by herself, Tosi began experimenting with ingredients and flavors. Trips to Dairy Queen with her dad reminded her there’s always something to celebrate.
She’s carried their influences through to adulthood and forged a career around dessert because of her insatiable sweet tooth. And why not?
“One of dessert’s superpowers is that it triggers memories like nothing else, generating moments that are deep, personal, and wholly ours,” Tosi writes.
It’s true. Just reading about her moments of joy brought back memories of my own — past birthday parties, trips for ice cream after soccer games, a friend showing up with a treat after I’d had a really bad day. We all have these memories.
While desserts have shaped Tosi’s life, you don’t have to like dessert to choose joy. “Every single yes is an opportunity for your or someone else’s life to change,” she writes. For Tosi, cookies are her method of sharing joy. But no matter what brings you comfort or connection, the point, she explains, is the journey and choosing to celebrate, to focus on the greater purpose that drives us and not on the struggles that slow us down.
If you’ve watched “Bake Squad” on Netflix or joined one of Tosi’s baking classes online, you’ll find that her new book is as colorful as Tosi herself. When Dessert Can Save the World is released on March 8, pick up a copy and read for yourself why you should celebrate the joys in life — both big and small — in whatever way resonates with you.
Get cooking with these new releases
Mandi Hickman, an Austin-based food blogger and creator of Dash of Mandi, shares 60 meals in her new collection The Tex-Mex Table: 60 Knockout Recipes from the Lone Star State (Page Street Publishing, January 2022), many of which come together in one pot.
Dan Whalen’s latest cookbook, Nachos for Dinner: Surprising Sheet Pan Meals the Whole Family Will Love (Workman Publishing Group, January 2022), is filled with sweet, savory and saucy recipes to transform a well-loved snack into a full-blown meal.
If cooking at home makes you feel anxious, give Leanne Brown’s Good Enough. A Cookbook: Embracing the Joys of Imperfection and Practicing Self-Care in the Kitchen (Workman Publishing Group, January 2022) a try. Cooking is about embracing the experience, not about how perfect your dish turns out.
Rachael Ray opens her pantry and shares what she cooks at home in My Year in Meals (Atria Books, January 2022). It’s an interesting look at her life when the cameras stop rolling. As a bonus, her husband, John Cusimano, shares more than 100 cocktail recipes to pair with Rachael’s mouth-watering meals.
