Can you blame a girl for indulging her sweet tooth after she’s spent an hour driving only seven miles?
The locals call it the “trade parade:” the early spring traffic that stacks up at the eastern end of Route 27/Sunrise Highway, where two lanes converge into one and The Hamptons begin. All the vendors and service people who prepare this popular summer retreat for peak season (traditionally, Memorial Day through Labor Day) come from all points on Long Island and meet at this bottleneck.
I was headed out to Southampton for an article a few days ago and slammed into the trade parade at 8am. From experience I knew it would be there; but I didn’t realize how bad it would be. For those of you who know eastern Long Island, the crawl started all the way back at the Shinnecock Canal – about seven miles from the merge into one lane. There’s only one word for that: PAIN.
After the excruciating crawl and subsequent completion of the work I'd come to do, I had only one place in mind: The Fudge Company in downtown Southampton, NY.
Main Street, Southampton, is an elegant broad street lined with designer boutiques and novelty shops that are far too rich for my blood. But The Fudge Company is one of the few exceptions. Established in 1973, The Fudge Company actually has two locations about a quarter mile away from each other. The other is around the corner on Jobs Lane and this is where I went. Aside from finding parking a little easier, I’m more of an off-the-beaten-path kind of girl.
Opening the door the smell of fudge washed over me, immediately soothing my frazzled nerves. I floated over to the fudge counter where blocks of chocolate-peanut butter, Oreo, praline and marshmallow-filled chocolate fudge each winked at me. The Fudge Company is a full-service sweet shop with ice cream and hundreds of penny candies. But the homemade chocolate confections are the most seductive.
After much indecision I settled on a quarter-pound paper bag of assorted chocolate-covered cherries. Attracted by their garnet-red stems poking from bulbs of white, milk and dark chocolate, the cherries held the kind of promise that belongs to tulips yet to bloom. What beauty waited within the bulb?
To only describe the taste would be to cheat you out of half the pleasure. So let me start from the beginning and take you all the way through it:
You grab the crimson stem and plunk the weighty globe into your mouth. Using your teeth as a barrier, you tug the stem free then use your tongue to position the chocolate between your molars. With gentle, calculated pressure you give the ball a squeeze. Your teeth sink into the outer surface of the chocolate as it begins to dissolve against your cheek. Then – CRACK – the ball shatters into a dozen sweet, velvety pieces and a burst of liquid – like a popped water balloon – washes over your tongue. Most likely it’s kirsch, because a bit of the alcohol wafts straight up through your nose. Finally though your teeth have found the slippery pillow of the cherry and they press into it until the fruit collapses and tears. Quickly your mouth fills with the blissful blend of rich chocolate and bright cherry, which convinces you in this moment that there isn’t any two more compatible flavors. And twosomes are highly underrated.
- The Fudge Company: 66 Jobs Lane and 67 Main St., Southampton, New York, 631.283.8108 and 631.287.5436.
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