Bailey's Chocolate Truffles — Because Love Comes in Small, Sweet Things Too

Valentine's Day at a restaurant. The day that every restaurant in America either dreads or worships, and Sarah's Table is: both. Dreads because the pressure to make everything romantic and perfect is absurd for a lunch counter with twelve stools. Worships because couples eat, and couples eating means couples paying, and couples paying on Valentine's Day means premium pricing (Rita's voice: "Charge what it's worth, Sarah." I'm trying, Rita. I'm trying). The Valentine's dinner service: sold out. Thirty-two covers. Every stool, every table, every seat filled with people who chose to eat cornbread on Valentine's Day, which is either the most romantic thing or the most Nashville thing and in Nashville those are the same thing.

The menu: James's smoked chicken (two hours, cherry wood, the kind of chicken that makes people propose), Chloe's sweet potato soup with a heart-shaped cream swirl on top (Chloe's idea — she piped the cream with a squeeze bottle and the heart was: perfect, every single bowl, thirty-two hearts, the girl has the hands of a surgeon and the aesthetic sense of a designer and she is FOURTEEN), red velvet cornbread (my Valentine's invention — regular cornbread with cocoa powder and a cream cheese drizzle, which is either genius or heresy depending on how strict you are about cornbread and I am NOT strict on Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day is the one day the cornbread gets dressed up). Revenue from the Valentine's dinner: $3,800. One night. The math of love is: profitable.

Watching couples eat while being single. The specific experience of a woman who has been left twice and who cooks for lovers while her own love life is: empty. Not painful-empty. Not crying-in-the-bathroom empty. Just: empty. The space where a partner would be is a space I've filled with other things — the restaurant, the kids, the recipes, the work. The space is full, technically. But watching a man reach across the counter to hold a woman's hand over a bowl of sweet potato soup and seeing the woman smile — that specific thing, that hand and that smile — made me think about what it would be like to have that. To be the woman whose hand is held. To be at the table instead of behind it.

I don't talk about this much. Being single. Being alone in the romantic sense while being surrounded in every other sense. I have Mama. I have the kids. I have Kevin and Amber and Terrence and Mona and James and Patricia and DeShawn and Mrs. Henderson and the church and the restaurant and the entire ecosystem of people who feed me while I feed them. I am not lonely. I am not unhappy. But I am: single. And single at thirty-three with three kids and a restaurant is not the same as single at twenty-three with a Waffle House apron. Single at thirty-three is a choice, mostly. A choice born from exhaustion and priority and the knowledge that the last two men I chose both left and the choosing is: risky. The risk is: too high. The risk means disrupting the thing I've built — the routines, the mornings, the dinner table, the life — and the disruption is: not worth it. Not right now. Maybe not ever.

Chloe caught me looking at the couples. She was behind the counter, wiping down the coffee machine, and she saw me watching and she said: "You okay, Mama?" I said: "I'm great." She said: "You're watching the hand-holders." I said: "I'm fine." She said: "Mama. You deserve someone to hold your hand over cornbread." You deserve someone to hold your hand over cornbread. My fourteen-year-old daughter. The girl who sees everything. The girl who knows. I said: "Maybe someday." She said: "Someday is allowed." Someday is allowed. Permission from a teenager. Permission to want something for myself. The cornbread doesn't require me to be alone. The table has room. It always has room. I just have to believe there's a chair for me too.

Late dinner, at home, after service: grilled cheese and tomato soup. The Valentine's dinner of a woman who spent the holiday cooking for everyone else. And it was: perfect. Because grilled cheese is love too. The quiet kind. The kind that doesn't need candles. The kind that's just: enough.

The grilled cheese was enough — it really was — but after the kids were in bed and the kitchen was finally quiet, I stood at the counter and thought: thirty-two people got a Valentine’s dinner tonight, and I made every bit of it, and I deserve one small, ridiculous thing for myself. So I made these Bailey’s Chocolate Truffles. Chloe said someday is allowed, and someday started that night — with chocolate, Irish cream, and no one to share them with except me, which turned out to be exactly right.

Bailey’s Chocolate Truffles

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 2 hours 25 minutes (includes chilling) | Servings: 24 truffles

Ingredients

• 8 oz good-quality semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 3 tablespoons Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• Pinch of fine sea salt
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, for rolling
• Optional coatings: powdered sugar, crushed toasted nuts, or melted chocolate for dipping

Instructions

1. Melt the chocolate. Place the finely chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl. In a small saucepan over medium heat, warm the heavy cream until it just begins to simmer — small bubbles at the edges, not a full boil. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let it sit undisturbed for 2 minutes.
2. Make the ganache. Stir the chocolate and cream together from the center outward in slow, steady circles until completely smooth and glossy. Add the Bailey’s, softened butter, vanilla extract, and salt. Stir until fully incorporated and the ganache is silky.
3. Chill until firm. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap pressed directly against the surface of the ganache. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or until the mixture is firm enough to scoop and roll.
4. Shape the truffles. Using a small cookie scoop or a tablespoon, portion the ganache into roughly 1-inch mounds onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Work quickly — the heat from your hands will soften the chocolate fast. If it gets too soft, pop it back in the fridge for 15 minutes.
5. Roll and coat. Roll each mound between your palms into a ball, then immediately roll in cocoa powder (or your coating of choice) until fully covered. Place finished truffles back on the parchment-lined sheet.
6. Set and serve. Refrigerate the finished truffles for 15 minutes to firm back up before serving. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one week. Let them sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before eating for the best texture.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 78 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 6g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 14mg