A post by Tamara Berman-Ishee, guest blogger, my mother
First some background: My mother is a brave recipe-exploring foodie. My daughter is a fearless recipe-inventing über-foodie. I am a refueler—I eat, quickly, to fill my tank and quiet my insistent, screaming sweet tooth. There is little sensuous longing for gustation, or salacious anticipation of palate tickling in me. I swallow—TV dinners, tuna-noodle casserole, boxed macaroni and cheese, PB&J, Devil Dogs, hot dogs, ketchup with steak, white bread, American cheese, and Campbell’s soup—with about the same relish that I ingest feather-light homemade pasta, fresh-off-the-bush strawberries, coq au vin, fresh whipped cream, imported chorizo, just-off-the-vine fried zucchini blossoms, or grain-fed, free-range, anything. I am the anti-foodie, the foodie-NOT, the un-foodie.
Now imagine if you will, the three of us—mother, daughter, and me—traipsing through the world foodie Mecca known as Barcelona, Spain, the summer of my daughter’s college graduation. This is a city of (among other things) fish catchers, fish cookers, and fish eaters. I am none of these.
Our first morning in Barcelona started with a marathon debate-cum-research project focused on where we would eat all three meals plus snacks that day. Visits to cathedrals, shopping venues, museums, galleries, and other attractions would, for the next five days, completely revolve around food, meals, and restaurant recommendations.
Our first night we made our way to a warm and charming little place by the water. The highlight of the evening, for my twenty-two year old daughter, was the plate of fresh sardines delivered to her with something akin to religious zeal by a knowing waiter in tight black slacks. Her appreciation of the sardines blinded her to the charms of the waiter to such a degree that she actually demanded I photograph the plate rather than acquire the waiter’s phone number.
The consumption of the sardines was followed by a mind-numbing three-hour eating fest wherein I fidgeted and checked my watch while mother and daughter tasted and ate away, and glowed rosy with giddy gastronomical delight.
It went on like this until day three, hour 58, when we happened down a Barri Gottic alley and stumbled into a hidden, no-name, hole-in-the-wall, password-required-for entrance, coffee speakeasy. And let me just say right here, I am not a coffee drinker.
Mother and daughter ordered their beverages of choice and sipped and sighed with pleasure, oblivious to the greater allure of the hunky, dark-eyed barrista in an apron working the coffee plunger. I squirmed, and then finally, because it was a little chilly and I needed warming up, ordered a hot chocolate.
The moment the almost pudding-thick, bittersweet, silky, dark stuff hit my tongue, something happened. I had a moment of clarity and insight into my mother and daughter and their quixotic quest for the perfect taste experience. It was a jolt into life, that Spanish hot chocolate, and it altered the course of the rest of our Barcelona adventure for me.
Upon my return to my rural North Carolina home, I became determined to create the perfect cup of hot chocolate. Below lies the recipe:
- A couple spoonfuls of cocoa (amount depends on how dark you like it)
- A couple spoonfuls of sugar (amount depends on how sweet you like it)
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- 1 cup of light cream
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- Dash salt
Mix the cocoa, sugar, and salt in saucepan. Turn on heat to medium and add cream and vanilla slowly, whisking all ingredients until smooth. Keep heating and whisking till mixture reaches a perfect thick and light yin-yang consistency. Add butter (the secret ingredient) and allow it to melt as you whisk for a final minute until liquid is piping hot (but not scalding). Enjoy with whipped cream if you need it—I find it better straight.
