I feel like I’m trapped in what should be a little kid’s fantasy—desserts in every nook and cranny, all for the taking—except instead my feet hurt, my back aches and I’m pretty sure I’m going to throw up from my dinner consisting solely of chocolate bread pudding and chocolate peanut butter mousse. Apparently, there is indeed too much of a good thing.

Certainly New Yorkers love their food trucks, whether they serve tacos, ice cream or goat cheese cheesecake topped with fresh blackberries, rosemary caramel and a pistachio crisp. The Dessert Truck was started in the fall of 2007 by former Le Cirque pastry chef Jerome Chang and Chris Chen. They wanted to bring high-end desserts to New Yorkers for reasonable prices, and via a mobile food truck. The idea caught on quickly, as New York is a hungry bunch, especially when it comes to affordable sweets.

Eating crème brulee and preparing and serving it, I quickly learned, are two entirely different things. I arrived at the Dessert Truck a few minutes before 6pm, excited to be the best (and probably only) one-night only employee the Dessert Truck ever had. Given my zero experience in the food service industry, I was hoping my effervescence made up for the fact that I had no idea what I was doing.

Craig, my actually legitimate co-worker for the night, took the lead on doing most of the food prep while Chris taught me how to work the point of sale and interact with the customers. After forgetting one customer’s order for only two desserts, I’m pretty sure Chris thought it was a terrible idea to have me aboard (good thing he left before I smacked into Craig and a chocolate peanut butter mousse went flying). But, once I finally mastered how to fit to-go lids onto the dessert tins and how to explain the difference between “for now” and “in a bag” (apparently it wasn’t as obvious as I thought—you know, that one is for now, and one is, well, in a bag for later), I was in a groove.

 Some fabulous fix-ins a la The Dessert Truck

Luckily, the night started out with a slow stream of customers and by the time the onslaught hit around 9pm, I felt like a seasoned professional rather than a newbie who had only been on the job for three hours. I was answering questions about the history of the truck, giving out recommendations, upselling customers and making tips.

Then, at the first lull after nearly an hour and a half, I was ready to call it quits.

“This is about the time that you kind of hope no one else comes,” admitted Craig.

I agreed. I was tired of smiling, tired of explaining to people the differences between the desserts and tired of telling people that certain items were sold out even though they were clearly crossed out on the menu. I was a broken record of all things chocolate—yes we can give you an extra spoon, yes we are here seven days a week, no I’m sorry we don’t have ice cream tonight. The people and desserts were blurring together in some weird redundant order of two chocolate bread puddings, one crème brulee and one coconut tapioca. I started imagining the customers who came to order had already come just ten minutes before.

Occasionally, there was some comic relief, like the person who kept referring to a dessert as “chocolate pudding bread” or the woman who was curious where my shirt was from since it had a picture of a bird on it and her mother only wore shirts with birds on them (it’s from a Baltimore street fair, by the way).

Still, my mood quickly went from an excited bastion of customer service to a curmudgeonly salesperson who decided that all people sucked even if they were perfectly nice. After standing up for so long, plastering a smile on my face, I just couldn’t care any longer.

 I don’t think I had whined this much since I was ten—I’m tired and I want to go home, I kept telling Craig.

“Just be glad this isn’t winter time, when you’re standing here with gloves on, freezing, trying to make desserts.”

Touche.

Finally, it was closing time, and we had sold out of almost everything. I bade Craig adieu and ventured uptown, where my dessert-free bedroom was beckoning. Still, in the back of my head, I knew that I would be back soon (as a customer, I’m hanging up my Dessert Truck hat)—that “pudding bread” is just too good to resist.

The Molten Chocolate Cake

Written by Carey Polis

Top and bottom photos courtesy www.desserttruck.com