Frosted

Jim and I had supper at a restaurant tonight, and it was pretty good. We even had dessert! Unless a restaurant in North America is attached to a bakery or otherwise famous for its on-site baking, it's a pretty good bet that all the desserts--the stable ones like cakes and pastries, anyway--are purchased frozen and thawed before being served to you.

Knowing this, I nevertheless ordered some chocolate cake thing--very dense and rich, like a brownie--that had a ganache topping, ganache being a frosting or filling made from chocolate and cream melted together. Well, not according to the menu: that told me I was ordering something with chocolate grenache.

I don't think so, I thought to myself. But then I had doubts (I occasionally have doubts); what if "grenache" is actually some sort of alternate spelling, and I'm internally castigating the menu for no reason? So I looked it up when I got home, and sure enough, grenache is a wine grape. "Chocolate grenache" doesn't even bear thinking about.

Neither "ganache" nor "grenache" is a particularly commonplace word, but still: you'd think a menu could get it right.