three best bites: I tried to be healthy, and then I made a chocolate tart

It was a big week at my house: Nearly a year after signing paperwork with a contractor, we finally have a front patio and landscaped front garden. (D.C. permitting, even for the most minor projects, is a hellscape.) In the span of four days, our yard went from a weed jungle to something far more civilized. We even got a wooden fence to obscure our trash cans from view. A table and umbrella are on the way, which will mean lots of late-summer al fresco dining.

Anyways: enough talk about where I plant to eat. Here’s what I did eat during a hectic week.

my house is no longer an eyesore

chocolate tart: Alison Roman’s newest cookbook, “Sweet Enough,” has been my most used for desserts this spring and summer. Until last week, though, I’d stuck to fruit-centric stuff. That’s extremely in character for 35-year-old me and wildly out of character for the version of me that existed for most of my first 30 years. You see, I adore chocolate. I worship it. If chocolate started a cult, I’d join it.

In recent years, I’ve worked to expand my dessert horizons, especially in peak produce season. But as soon as a friend told me how good the tangy chocolate tart in “Sweet Enough” is, I knew I had to make it. Instead of using a mix of semisweet and bittersweet chocolate, I made it entirely with bittersweet, and it was all the things I wanted it to be: tangy and rich and subtly sweet — not the kind of dessert that makes your teeth hurt, but nearly.

It’s also gorgeous. The filling, before it’s set, isn’t just glossy; it’s downright shiny. And because I must’ve lost my tart pan in my last move, I made the crust freeform in a pie plate, which meant a bit of leftover filling, and you’d better believe I ate most of it with a spoon.

I was too focused on eating this tart to take a photo