Nuts! Hot Chocolate

There is nothing you cannot do with hot chocolate.

And a Few Peanuts...
With my coat, scarf and gloves on, a few nights ago, I set out the door, destined for Karby's Sweet Treats, in New Jersey.  Trying to call to get shop hours, I learned that the phone number had been changed. Undeterred, I hit my favorite search engine to find an alternative purveyor of the chocolaty stuff. Those that came up were either closed or too far away to make the drive before closing hours. Hmm, what to do? Make my own!
So, into the kitchen I strolled, pondering, searching my taste buds for the taste I was after. Gazing into the refrigerator, recalling my experience at Dylan's Candy Bar, I spied the jars, jars of peanut butter and jelly.
As easy as that, the menu del dia was chosen.
Into a mug of room temperature water, I unceremoniously dumped a heaping tablespoon of chunky peanut butter, and then placed it into the microwave for a couple of minutes. Down and dirty, quick and easy, whipping up this chocolaty brew, I decided against any hoity-toity, liqueur silliness.
"Beep-beep," the microwave sounded. I pulled out the mug and began to stir. Slowly, the butter melted. Into the mixture I added chocolate and another heaping tablespoon, this time of organic apricot preserves and again, I stirred. Then, warm from stirring the cocoa, my spoon cut into fresh-from-the-ice-box cold, cinnamon whipped cream, and piled a Matterhorn-sized scoop of the white stuff atop the creation. Perfection!
Flopping onto the sofa, I slurped down the frothy delight made slightly crunchy, slightly salty, with bits of peanut. Glug, glug, glug, down it went, smooth. Gone in just a few silky swigs, it was as comforting as a grade-school, lunch box, peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Or Even Hazelnuts...
After going comando with the PB& J, yet another blistery cold night has me seeking solace, the solace of a warm beverage.  It's a weekend, so I'm feeling a bit festive. Heading to the pantry, this time the DiSaronno provided the twist that made an otherwise humdrum mug of cocoa worth mention. So subtle a twist, the hazelnut essence melted away like just another sweetener, an equal or Splenda, or teaspoon of sugar. But, was different. No medicine taste there at all, this one, with a modest spritz of chocolate whipped cream in a teacup, was simply delightful.

But those with Almonds...
Nights ago it was peanut butter, yesterday there were hazelnuts and tonight, again, nuttiness was the flavor du jour. This time though, I decide to try out the nuttiness of a TAZA Chocolate product. Chocolate Mexicano, the stone ground & organic discs are chopped or grated, and folded into milk. Opting for the salted almond flavor, my expectations were high for an authentically crafted product.
Sadly, though the discs disappointed this choco-addict.
Mild and slight, the flavor lacked the intensity for which I had hoped and experienced in other traditionally produced products. TAZA's chocolate tablets also lacked creaminess and didn't blend well. Rather that velvet heaven, my blade chopped through a dark brown puck that produced a powdery pile that caked its residue on the surface of the milk in my cup.
Following the adage, "when all else fails, follow the directions," I went on line as suggested, hoping to find cues for some corrective action. I musta done something wrong, right? No remedy was to be found and by all accounts I had prepared it as recommended.
My only mistake, it seemed, ultimately, was in purchasing the product.
Oh nuts!


(c) 2011 Valerie Williams-Sanchez

Two Kinds of Hot, Cocoa: Caliente Y Picante!

This vignette's brief. But, it perfectly suits my mood, today – hot 'n spicy!
All the snow, rain and ice are getting to this Cali girl. So, I've decided to warm things up and to get creative over a cup of cocoa.

Still here in the eastern side of the continent, I'm dreaming of warmer climes, like the beaches of the Yucatan, or Veracruz and Mexico's Eastern shores, where I have found inspiration. Like the stacking platforms of the Mexican pyramid of Chichen Itza, this latest cup of cocoa is hot on multiple levels.

I've added to a milk chocolate for hot cocoa base, a healthy dose of Kahlua and, get this, hot sauce. Yep, you read correctly, hot sauce. My measurements are far from exact, less about science and more to taste. And wonderfully, the organically measured dose of habanero pepper sauce has added a warm dimension and subtle heat to a traditional flavor. The hot sauce, with its tongue-tingling savory heat, is the perfect punctuation to the Kahlua's mellow sweetness and slightly bitter, coffee-enhanced zing.

Further, and tipping the cup's flavor scale back toward sweet, I've dropped a generous dollop of cinnamon whipped cream to bring the beverage into balance. Cinnamon sticks, and a coffee bean provide a lovely garnish and visual finish.

Mind you, I do not recommended blending hot sauce with white chocolate cocoas, as the sweetness produced, I found, a collision of flavor that lacked the saturated and harmonious heat, a milk or even dark chocolate blend created.

El Yucateca brand red pepper sauce is my current flavor of choice -- it impressed me when it was spritzed over my New Year's Day, eaten-for-good luck, black-eyed peas -- though any other brand like Tabasco, Tapatio, Red Rooster, etc., would probably do as well.  El Yucateca, though, made with habanero peppers, packs a wallop that the aforementioned brands, made with chili peppers, can't match.

Also worth note, bypass mocha flavored chocolates too if you're hitting the "Kahlua con spicy." Paired with strong insinuations of coffee brought on by the Kahlua, mocha chocolate overpowered the heat of the pepper sauce.

This one was memorable, and touched on most all of the six types of taste: bitter, sweet, sour, salty, unami and, of course, spicy. Also surprisingly robust, the flavor melange left an aftertaste that was equally complex and haunting, like the winding feathered serpent shadows cast by the main pyramid in Chichen Itza, a Mayan architectural treasure.


(c) 2011 Valerie Williams-Sanchez

Hot Cocoa Ganache Online

My love of chocolate is obvious. It is a relationship that, like the substance and even love itself, is sweet, warm, comforting, and at times magical and seductively, intoxicating surprising.

Anticipating another dateless Valentine's Day, on a recent Wintry night, I decided to be my own secret admirer. Comfortably curled up on the sofa under my Snuggie, I pampered myself with a new a mug and a new flavor creation: Chambord spiked Raspberry Hot Chocolate, finished with a flourish – hand whipped, stiff peaks of fresh raspberry crème, made with heavy whipping cream, pureed raspberries, and brown sugar!  With, of course, a raspberry on top, added for good measure.

Rich, chocolate with the lovely ribbon of fruity sweetness was a surprising twist that took the flavor above and beyond my everyday. Savoring each drop through to its sweet finish, the drink felt cozy yet luxurious and languid like the blanket under which I lay in repose, a modern, brown-skinned version of Goya's "La Maja Vestida."

The set-up, with the rich treat, was the perfect way to unwind from a long work week, during which no less than two snow storms dumped about 15 inches of the white stuff, sending fleets of snow plows into the streets, burying my car more than once.

Plowed and covered in snow, armed with my red shovel, I had dug my car out each time.

That's why the notion of relaxing, being still, warm and dry, was the one and only place I could see myself or wanted to be on this night. Other Fridays could have found me in New York City, perhaps dining with friends, or just being out on the town, meeting new, fabulous people, entertaining the prospects of finding love. But recent attempts to "get back out there," as my mother would often prod, had fallen flat for the most part.

Sipping a second round of warm chocolate from a white glazed, ceramic mug with a thick red rim, I recalled a few ghosts of dating meet-ups past which had included introductions arranged through friends, family and work associates. But one particular incident stood out in my mind as I nursed my beverage. It happened some three years ago on my one and only foray into the strange and anonymous universe of online dating.

The notion of online dating had never really appealed to me. In my mind, the whole endeavor seemed sort of sordid, and smacked of the party telephone lines made popular in the 80's. Online dating sites were, for me, too similar to the conference call rooms in which random strangers, loitered and stalked for hook-ups with others who were equally desperate.  Back then, the interactions seemed so pitiful, aimless and impersonal.

I had seen and heard my high school friends make such calls. A few had become hooked on the "technology" and would gather with other girl friends at their homes to make the calls. Back then, groups would clamor around a touch tone or finger-dial telephone to make calls from which they would awkwardly switch between multiple phone lines, talking to one person to the next laughing, flirting and generally having fun.

That's what it was all about: teenagers looking to have fun. Girls baited and teased the inevitable creepy old guy or unwitting dolt, who was a bit too excited and forth coming at having more than one hot young thing with whom to indulge in conversation, never mind, and never knowing that each and everyone was woefully underage.

In stark contrast, it was not until recently that the notion of meeting and marrying a real and normal person, a future husband in fact, seemed possible. It was because of my newly and seemingly happily wed, co-worker, had met his new spouse via an online service that helped me overcome my objections, and got me to try the approach while I was still living in Southern California.

And so it was with that hope, and a huge chunk of lingering reticence and reluctance, that I assumed the alias, "Cocoa Ganache" and wadded cautiously out into the World Wide Web. I took my new moniker out for a spin on couple of sites, creating accounts, writing and posting personal profiles in which I included details about my love of chocolate.

Over the next few weeks, I got a few responses from secret and not-so-secret admirers.  A babe in the woods, I posted my information on one site which turned out to be nothing more than an internet hotline for those looking for spontaneous sexual encounters. Subscribers to these sites were quite frank about their intentions.

One respondent in particular wasted no time and had no compunctions about telling me in very, very graphic language of his interests and intentions. After a few truncated pleasantries and an introduction of himself as a Northern European professional and ex-pat, living in the U.S., this fellow followed up by asking with undue excitement whether "Cocoa Ganache" was my porn name. Cause if I were into that, he said, it'd be very hot. Whatever Cocoa Ganache was, though, he said, he was willing to try. When informed it was simply a nod to my passion for cooking and chocolate – I was especially fond of high-end truffles at the time -- he was undeterred. Unabashedly, he suggested we meet for an impromptu rendezvous during which he intended to show me some tricks with his spatula.

His notes were written in stilted commercial English probably learned abroad and that no doubt mimicked a similar accent his speaking voice might have. When I explained that I would prefer to be treated as a lady, he asked bluntly, in decidedly more explicit language, "Do you want to [do it] or not?"

The liaison was short lived, very short lived. But it wasn't the only. Cocoa Ganache also attracted other, similarly bold courtesans, if they could be called such. Another of the more brazen in the bunch was a beautiful, young Asian man with rippling pectorals, rolling abs and spiky, black hair that partially masked his face as featured in his profile, and on online pictorial. From one frame to the next, he showed his true self as an exhibitionist.

With an apparent need to bear his soul – and everything else, in a close up no less – he posted a series of three pictures of himself standing in front of a bed in a bedroom. Upon opening the second file, in which he was nude, the angle and of the closely shot image had the effect of someone hurling a Frisbee almost without warning at my head.  I ducked for cover from the picture that seemed to extend out, almost in 3D.

"Whoa!" I yelped dodging the surprise visual. I then burst in to laughter, realizing what I had seen, amused by my naïve, knee-jerk reaction. Flush and flustered, I felt like a schoolgirl, as I quickly closed the web page and logged off of the site not wanting to linger. Unsolicited and caught completely off guard, I never went back to either of those guys; neither did I go back to the sites, figuring it all to be too much for my maturing sensibilities which prefer old-fashioned courtship and in-person contact and connection. "I'm too old for this," I thought to myself with light-hearted resignation.

I still laugh at the realization of how silly the entire experience was, even more so when I recall myself hunched down in front of the computer screen, nearly hitting the deck, belly first to avoid a picture! And I can't help but giggle at myself and how absurdly seriously I can see the world at times.

On this night then, happily sipping my sweet treat, I was reminded to not take myself nor many of the things in my life so seriously. And even though these days I prefer to keep my "Cocoa Ganache," offline, as I looked down into my mug, I contemplated whether it was half empty or full and was assured that  my life is quite full.


(c) 2011 Valerie Williams-Sanchez

Hot Chocolate in the Limelight

Tonight's hot chocolate was a luscious bite of decadent, nostalgic indulgence that turned up at 47 W. 20th Street in Manhattan's Flatiron District. Once a throbbing, pulsating and iconic disco-tech beating in the heart of a gothic church, the Limelight has again re-made itself, turning the sacred into yet another iteration of the profane.

Ostensibly blaspheming hallowed ground, the space, once a place of worship, has been transformed into Limelight Marketplace, in bold but lively and irreverent challenge to John 2:16.

A host of vendors line the walls of the multi-levels of the space, peddling their wares of bejeweled baubles, scented soaps, savory nibbles and sugary-sweet desserts. Nary a dove, drag queen or outré night creature of yester-year was to be found on this evening in the place which seemed to be thriving, clearly skewed for a newer, younger clientele of nocturnal monster -- ala  Gaga, Kanye, and Minaj -- with an insatiable penchant for things sweet.

Clean and pristine, the locale's blasphemous sub-text didn't even occurred to me until after I had left, thrilled at my latest chocolate find. It was on the second floor of the building, on the wall opposite a stained glass, rose window. Tucked in the far back corner at a stand-up bar was featured some of the most deeply rich and indulgent sweet treats to be found this side of heaven, or perhaps, in this case, "H – E – double-toothpicks."

Ruby et Violette is probably better known for its dizzying array of cookies, in flavors which I was told count in the hundreds, brownies, and frozen, cookie-dough-spiked creams. But it was the hot chocolate and drinking chocolate, two unnaturally rich, warm beverages that ranked in my book.

I started with a tasting. The hot chocolate was first. Smooth and velvety in texture, it was noteworthy. Then, however, I tried the drinking chocolate. The woman at the counter likened it to a candy bar you can drink. In one sip, though, I knew differently. Within an instant of sipping it, I felt as if I were again in Madrid, in the after-hours cafes where people by the dozens wait in lines to gnosh on "churros and chocolate" in the early morning hours before day break.

Now, standing squarely in Manhattan, at the marbled counter-top, the thick-as-pudding elixir coated my palate, and saturated my taste buds with memory of heady nights spent dancing until dawn, partying through the streets, enjoying the seemingly endless "marcha" of cosmopolitan Europe.

Made giddy with memory as much as the flavor of a rediscovered treasure, I searched the counter space for hot chocolate's perfect compliment – a crispy, light, freshly fried churro. None was to be found. Instead, rich cookies and assaultingly sweet creams were all around.

With that first sip still reverberating through my senses, churros, and only churros would do. I tried to remember when I had last had one. Suddenly, nearly spontaneously, I bust into laughter as a vague vision of French-blue pinstripes gave way to the mental image of the couch in my old home on which I lay awaiting homemade churros, and for my contractions to pass while fully engaged in labor, on the day gave birth to my now 15-year-old daughter. I laughed out loud.

Bearing through contractions still too far apart, I had been told by my ob/gyn to wait a bit longer before heading, with my then husband, to the hospital. Making churros had been the diversion concocted to pass the time.

The recollection of the day leading to my child's birthday was as clear and vivid as the crescendoing flavor of chocolate. It was then when it occurred to me, too, that it must have been in January, about this time of year, so many moons ago, that she, whose birthday is in October, was conceived. The realization was a moment I savored. It was good.

I purchased a serving of the beverage to go, as it was late in the evening. It came in a demitasse-sized paper cup, 3/4 full, appropriate for the drink's potency.

To satiate my visual appetite, I also bought a ½ cup sized, Rainbow Wood Bowl that dressed up the luscious treat. Among the top selling gifts from the holiday season past, according to the shopkeep, the repurposed houseware proved a wonderful vessel, with warm, earthy tones and texture that complimented the same qualities of the drink.

Ultimately, a biscotti stood in for a churro. The Italian dipping cookie did well, robust enough to hold up to the viscosity and flavor of the chocolate. Could it be an otherworldly hint?

I dipped, sipped and wondered, passing through the snowy shouldered streets of New York City, winding my way to and over the George Washington Bridge toward home, my heart warmed with hope, by memories and chocolate.



(c) 2011 Valerie Williams-Sanchez





Footnote: Per the bible text of  John 2:16, and when the passage is read literally, a church that was used as a marketplace, would be considered blasphemous. However, I would put forth that once a structure, previously used for worship, is no longer actively used as "a place where two or more gather to worship the Lord." Such a structure would no longer be considered a church and therefore the activities carried out therein, neither would be blasphemous.

Moreever, the suggestion that a group would endeavor to be so bold, is noteworthy and a very strong marketing device, which as in its hayday as again today, resounds and draws interest,  particularily among those aware if the scritpural passage. This arguement is a theologically distinction. From a communications and language point of view, the use of the words "quite literally" are just that, meant to highlight the textual contradiction, driving the characterization as blasphemous. The contradiction and tension are also what make the Limelight Marketplace so intriguing from a consumer marketing perspective. Last, in practical terms the distinction between the literal -- in this instance could be liked to a de jure reading -- should be juxtaposed with a de facto interpretation, in which practical matters must be taken into consideration when attributing meaning. As such, the phrase ends by simply alluding to the biblical challenge which is ostensibly, the very point of tension that makes the venue and its approach to marketing fresh, new, and of interest.