ITS healthy. It really is. That is why it has become my choice for a winter Friday night (Shabbat) dessert. Chocolate fondue. Think about it, a dessert or cake usually includes sugar, cream, eggs, butter or oil and chocolate. But if you serve chocolate fondue, dessert is just chocolate, plus the ripe luscious and healthy fruits (OK, orangettes and marshmallows, too) for dipping.
My friends laugh at my little rationalization.
But its true! Mmm.
A hot bath of warmth, of runny chocolate in a pot over a little fire or candle, the whimsical fun of slipping and dipping ripe red strawberries or circles and chunks of pale gold yellow bananas through this flowing river of dark goodness. It doesnt get much better than that now, does it?
O yes. It works with your brain chemistry and has actually been shown to improve your mood. Serotonin. If you are ever cranky or grumpy, here is your homeopathic medicine: chocolate.
Personally, I believe ice cream, yeast pastries, dulce de leche and cheese cake to be very healing homeopathic medicines as well.
But I am still conducting those studies and there is no conclusive research on that just yet. But chocolate? Medically proven!
If you believe in that cooking wisdom that comes down through the generations from our grandmothers to us, why, Id say there is chocolate wisdom, too. Way before those medical serotonin studies and journals, we knew about it all along, didnt we?
Ah, chocolate. I have a little fantasy of owning a little chocolate boutique, a chocolatier, or an old world charm chocolate factory.
My friend Liz claims my tiny Jerusalem apartment was a chocolate boutique or chocolatier. Between the weekly hot chocolate fondue, the vintage Parisian chocolat posters in navy and yellow with the little braided girls hanging on one of the walls in my kitchen, the constant hot chocolate sipping, the little boxes of chocolate truffles and bon bons, the departure from my apartment with some teeny tiny baked chocolate treat or treasure in hand, she claims it qualifies.
THEN there is the cocoa. The things you can make out of this dark form of fairy dust. I believe sparkling snow stars falling from the sky are the truly true fairy dust. But cocoa sure comes in a close second. Hot chocolate. Now in this cold, snowy weather there is nothing quite like warming up a big soup pot of warm milk and then mixing in a lot, as in tons, of that good quality cocoa-fairy dust, is there?
Im not one of those people who is obsessed with chocolate. Swear. Im not one of those people who considers chocolate to be the only food group. Promise. Scouts honor. I dont.
I think adding caramel or coffee or kahlua or even some cayenne and cinnamon for an aztec twist to a pot of hot chocolate is perfectly fine. Really. Im not some narrow, chocolate purist though I will grant you the special place I have in my heart for good quality chocolate, especially dark Swiss truffle chocolates.
There is another thing: Are you a milk chocolate person, a white chocolate person, or a dark chocolate person?
I will admit it took me some time and many years of dairy chocolate enjoyment before I switched over to the dark side. But now I am a firm believer.
And there is no turning back.
A friend once noticed that whenever I received a box of chocolates I first take a little bite from each thick and creamy truffle, before choosing which truffle or bon bon to continue with. Subconscious chocolate rituals. Its a sweet and serious thing.
