Oreo Tiramisu
Part II - Dating a Sociopath
Date #1 was MTN, Gjusta, and Salt and Straw.
Date #2 was Felix. Ahhhh Felix. Felix means “luck” in Italian. The potion in Harry Potter called “Felix Felices” is a thick gold substance that when drunk, makes you lucky for that day. I felt over the moon lucky to be dining at Felix.
Felix is a restaurant in Venice created by Evan Funke, Italian food mastermind. I had been to his restaurant Bucato in Culver City many years before and I had one of the best meals there.
We ordered the fried artichokes, the buttery and spongey foccaccia. Then three pasta dishes (we had a lot leftover). For dessert - tiramisu. And two glasses of Super Tuscan for me - three for him. I found out when he came clean to me about all of his lies that he left a $100 tip that night. He was trying to burn through that $40,000 loan as fast as he could.
The very difficult part of this story to explain is the feeling I had when I was around him. But it is the most important part.
During that meal at Felix, not because of eating too much, but because of how I felt being there with him, I felt sick to my stomach. Nauseous, nervous, anxious. Sometimes we confuse those feelings for love or lust or infatuation.
This nausea and not being able to sleep plagued me for months while I dated him. I lost a good 10 pounds. That is one of the ultimate ironies of this story - all the amazing, expensive food I ate and my inability to truly enjoy it.
The nausea and the sleep deprivation, the wide awake at night, electrified feelings, were confusing to me. I knew they were telling me something though. The sensations of the body do not lie. Looking back, I should have taken those bodily signs as a signal to high tail it out of there and never look back. But I was hooked.
A note on the story:
Writing this story out, it seems unbelievable. But it’s true, and it happened to me. I fell in love with this person who lied to me over and over and over again, who manipulated me and used me. The saga of our deranged relationship lasted over two years and has had profound effects on every area of my life. I often blame myself for so much of what happened. However, I have come to realize that the important part of the story is that I got out.
This tiramisu is honestly so ridiculously good. It might, maybe, be close to as good as the one I could barely taste that night at Felix. But this recipe goes HIGH and it goes LOW. The Oreos are the “low”. Instead of a lady finger, I used oreos dipped in coffee as the cookie component of the tiramisu. I HIGHLY encouraged you to make this dessert.
Oreo Tiramisu
5 egg yolks
2/3 cup white sugar
16 ounces cold mascarpone
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 cups freshly brewed coffee
4 tablespoons rum
1 package of Trader Joe’s Oreos or regular Oreos
1/4 cup to 1/3 cup dutch process cocoa powder
Instructions:
Combine coffee and rum in a shallow dish and set aside.
Begin to whisk egg yolks in the bowl of stand mixer. Slowly add sugar and continue to whip for 2 minutes until mixture turns pale yellow. Add cold mascarpone and whip for another 30 seconds until incorporated. Transfer to a separate bowl and set mixture aside.
In bowl of stand mixer whip cold whipping cream until stiff peaks form. Fold into mascarpone mixture.
Choose any dish you’d like to layer the tiramisu in. Begin by dipping oreos for a few second in rum and coffee mixture and create one layer of oreos in the bottom of the dish. Spread mascarpone/whipped cream mixture over oreos and dust with cocoa powder. Repeat until you run out of oreos and filling. Dust top of tiramisu with cocoa powder and cover in plastic wrap. Let marinade for a few hours or overnight.
