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Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

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Stop settling for sad parfaits

Roast the fruit. Brighten the yogurt. Salt the granola. A few small moves, a better parfait

Published March 17, 2026 12:00PM (EDT)

A version of this essay first appeared in The Bite, Salon's food newsletter. Sign up for early access to articles like this, plus recipes, food-related pop culture recommendations and conversations about what we're eating, how and why

In my experience, the yogurt parfait is often more elegant in name than in execution. “Parfait” suggests precision: a glass vessel, a long spoon, something architectural and composed. It sounds like restraint. It sounds like Europe.

But conjure one in your mind’s eye and I suspect we’re seeing the same thing: slumped berries bleeding into pale yogurt. Yogurt that was too sweet to begin with and has since gone watery, pooling at the bottom like regret. Granola that’s either stale — thin-sliced cardstock masquerading as crunch — or so aggressively hard it feels like a dare to your dental work.

The promise is layered pleasure: creamy against crisp, bright against rich. The reality is often beige. Damp. One-note. A breakfast that feels more like penance than possibility.

And yet — the idea persists for a reason.

At its best, a parfait is a study in contrast. Cool and tangy yogurt, fruit that tastes unmistakably like itself, crunch........

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