Good Sentences: Desserts (March 2025)
The University of Michigan Law School is filled with not just some brilliant legal minds but also some brilliant amateur bakers. Here are some dessert-themed materials to celebrate their kitchen skills and generosity. (I am pretty sure that, in every semester I have taught here, there has been at least one day that somebody—usually unprompted—brought delicious baked goods to class.)
Enjoy!
—The Good Sentences Team
1. Essay: Mountain Town Bakers Tackle the Art of Bread and Pastry at Elevation by Amanda Faison (2023)
Favorite Sentence: “The result: Lumi’s delivery boxes are replete with chewy ginger rye cookies, exquisite sticky buns, flaky kouign-amann complete with sugary air pockets, and an array of other treats.”
—Picked by Renuka Wagh, Class of 2025 (Favorite Dessert to Bake: Family Recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies)
2. Fiction: Chocolat by Joanne Harris (1999)
Favorite Sentence: “Behind the papier-mâché, the icing, the plastic, she can still see the real witch, the real magic.”
—Picked by Sophie Hennings, Class of 2025 (Favorite Dessert to Bake: Strawberry Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting)
3. Poetry: Decorating a Cake While Listening to Tennis by Peg Duthie (2018)
Favorite Sentence:
“At hearing ‘luck’ again, I stop until my hands relax their clutch on the cone from which a dozen more peonies are to materialize.”
—Picked by Elle Sawyer, Class of 2026 (Favorite Dessert to Bake: Tres Leches)
Michigan Sentences: Here is an article that examines the real—and perceived—risks of eating raw cookie dough. It was written by Brian Zikmund-Fisher, a professor of health behavior and health equity in the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
“Is the FDA Being Grinch-Like in Raising Concerns about Raw Cookie Dough?” (The Conversation, 2018)
Sample: “Let’s all please remind ourselves that our goal is not to minimize all risk, no matter the cost. Our goal is to maximize life. Sometimes maximizing life means warning people that their flour is contaminated and making sure they throw it out. Sometimes maximizing life means letting them enjoy some (carefully prepared) cookie dough without shame.”
Syllabus Sentences: A feedback framework I have found useful in all sorts of situations—including when a student once asked for ways to improve a new brownie recipe she was experimenting with—is “Keep/Cut.”
“Keep/Cut” (Chapter 2 of Feedback Loops)
Sample: “The questions at the heart of Keep/Cut are neither especially fancy nor especially innovative:
What should we keep?
What should we cut?
[But they do provide] a dual benefit:
They lower the barrier to conversational entry for people who are more reserved. The simple menu of options—you can either pick ‘Keep’ or you can pick ‘Cut’—gives even the quietest people some participatory momentum.
They impose useful constraints on people who tend to ramble. There isn’t a whole lot of room for digressions or grandstanding when all you are being asked to do is say ‘Keep’ or ‘Cut’ and support your selection with a sentence or two of explanation. A comment that begins ‘Keep because _______________’ rarely leads to unproductive pontificating.”
Book Recommendations
For good sentences—and poems—about, among other things, having bacon for dessert
The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food & Drink (2012)
Sample: “Food and poetry each insist that we put our own twists and ingredients in the mix: we make each dish, like a good poem, our own. With any luck, the result is both surprising and satisfying, exactly what we wanted, perhaps without even knowing it.”
For good sentences by the owner of Chez Panisse, the small restaurant in Berkeley, California that, with dishes like its legendary almond tart, became famous around the world
Coming to My Senses by Alice Waters (2017)
Sample: “Our peach ice cream and coconut cake tradition evolved over the years into an obsession around finding the absolute best peach for my dad and making the ice cream from scratch in a hand-cranked machine, never really freezing it, just having it at that perfect texture where it’s off the dasher.”
For good sentences by another famous chef and restaurant owner: Eric Ripert
32 Yolks by Eric Ripert and Veronica Chambers (2016)
Sample: “I had my special restaurant suit, and spent weeks looking forward to the afternoon when I’d be presented with the chariot de dessert, the old-fashioned dessert cart, and allowed to choose as many pastries as I wanted.”
Quick Tip
Here’s a quick tip about lessons that applies both to writing and to baking: the best, most authentic productions often take a few drafts.
