Cocoa

One of the hardest things to give up has been that lovely bacon-and-eggs breakfast that I indulged in when nursing our youngest. Between losing weight and dietary restrictions, I might indulge in the occasional hash browns, but the Full Irish must, alas, be but a distant memory, at least for a while.

To compensate, I've been indulging myself with a mid-morning cocoa.

Now, as a child, breakfast was not my thing. My mother used to jokingly remind me that as a baby, I liked two big meals: one mid-morning, one mid-afternoon. I'm still not a morning person, as our exchange student has learned (I may look awake, but I'm not), and I still don't like most breakfast foods. If I can't have a greasy mess, forget it.

So, after putting in an hour or two at work, I shuffle upstairs and make myself cocoa. Last year at this time, I was using eggnog, thinned with milk (too thick otherwise), but this year, doctor's orders means being creative. I've been experimenting with Silk Soy Nog. It's quite good with Green and Black's Hot Chocolate. Other good combinations are made with almond milk (Blue Diamond's vanilla Almond Breeze is an excellent base). My standby is vanilla almond milk with Ghirardelli Double Chocolate, but I have a whole collection of chocolate to add to hot (almond) milk: the aforementioned Green & Black's, which also comes in an incredibly tasty version called Maya Gold, with cinnamon and chili; Ghirardelli's collection, including the double chocolate, hazelnut (once that's back on the menu) and mocha (for mornings where I need a kick start); and the old standby of Cadbury drinking chocolate. I'm fortunate to have my husband's work colleagues who visit regularly from Ireland, and they keep us in good supply (I trade them peanut brittle and jelly bellies for it).

My mid-morning cocoa break is now over, and I shall get back to work.

Winter Light

Driving over the hill yesterday, the light struck me: that pale, thin winter sunshine. There were dark clouds behind the mountain, which stood out brightly in its new white coat. And the bare trees reminded me of Paris this time of year. There is an elegant beauty to the leafless trees lining the boulevards, and great pleasure in tucking into a good bistro meal on a cold night.

Tonight we were all home, miracle of miracles in this season (it does seem to be busier than ever this year). Dinner was "home bistro"--steak au poivre: I sautéed round steak (local, grass-fed beef), deglazed with a little Cabernet Sauvingnon (electric reindeer?!) and finished off with some sour cream (Tofutti, since it's not a dairy day). A sprinkling of cracked pepper to garnish. French fries from the oven, perfect for pushing through the sauce on your plate. Steamed fresh organic green beans rounded things off. Salad was mâche, radiccio and frisé with avocado and tomato in a raspberry balsamic vinaigrette.

The boys devoured their chocolate St. Nicholauses, while we noshed on cookies from the giant tin, and we had an interesting discussion about why they're hollow, and what it would take to make them solid. My dear husband insisted that the traditional ones were hollow, and had me running around town to find them. I finally found inexpensive ones at the drug store--Russell Stover makes them. They had all kinds of fillings: marshmallow, caramel, but he wanted 30 for his team, and insisted they be hollow.

Anyhow, we talked about how it was much harder to make solid chocolate shapes, since molten chocolate shrinks and leaves dimples as it cools, just like wax when you create candles by pouring. It reminded me how I had been reading Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate by Alice Medrich, and she talked about how she had naïvely made her first truffles with untempered chocolate. She was doing it all wrong, but there were distinct advantages: they had to be eaten fresh, which meant they tasted better, and they melted at a lower temperature, which, if you ask me, makes for a more sensual experience. Not that little boys don't smear chocolate all over their faces anyway.