I first heard about caramelized white chocolate Last January, when I had the good fortune to attend the Ecole Chocolate Graduate Luncheon in San Francisco.  There, we were treated to samples of fabulous chocolates and bonbons, one of which was made with Valrhona’s “blonde chocolate”, Dulcey . According to the company’s executive chef and director, Frederic Bau, Dulcey was created by mistake, after he left white chocolate in a bain marie. After 10 hours, he discovered that it had turned blonde and smelled of shortbread, caramelized milk and unrefined sugar.

I had a colleague once, who used to dab vanilla behind her ears before teaching a class.  She said it helped to keep her calm and reminded the kids of cookies, so they were happy. I love the aroma of vanilla.  I currently have five different bottles of vanilla extract, plus Tahitian vanilla beans in my pantry. And it is such a complimentary flavour to many foods, but especially to my other favorite, and the chief subject of this blog:  chocolate. Whether in a vanilla crème or as the base of a hot fudge sundae, nothing matches the taste of really good vanilla.

I have never done anything quite like this for a show.  I have built a few props in my time.  Props are the things actors carry around and use in a play, full name:  properties. For my students’ shows in the past I have built things to look like food:  a foam rubber three tiered chocolate brown birthday cake, double decker plaster ice cream cones and the occasional foam rubber and fabric chicken drumstick, but for this year’s play, I am creating something edible that will look as though it should never go near a person’s mouth.

I have always been slightly afraid of chickens … until now. Last weekend my partner and I had a long overdue opportunity to visit my sweet friend, Georgia and her backyard chickens.  I’ve been meaning to go and see “the girls” ever since she got them, but have never actually been organized enough to catch Georgia while she had some spare time, being the vibrant, involved, active person she is.  She recently finished a cross Canada bicycle journey – the chickens stayed home to bond with her Dad.

I have been immersed in my “other life” for the past four weeks, and have neglected everything else except learning lines, blocking and finding characters for the multiple roles I (and my acting partner) play in Harvest, a sweet play for two “mature” actors, by Canadian playwright, Ken Cameron. Although all kinds of misadventures happen to Allan and Charlotte (our two main characters) in the story, including moving to the city, retirement downsizing, having their home being turned into a marijuana grow-op by renters,

I love Easter Chocolate.  As a kid, I always remember it tasting so much better than the bargain stuff collected at Hallowe’en. While less in quantity, it still had the appeal of being “all yours’, to be squirrelled away and eaten sparingly in the weeks to come, or if you were a kid like me, devoured in a couple of days, not a box of chocolates doled out sparingly at the behest of an adult. … except for the year our family dog jumped up on my bed and devoured my Cadbury’s chocolate hollow egg.

Well, it’s been a few weeks, but we were finally able to re-connect with my favorite Scotch Aficionado, Stephen, and his lovely partner Kathryn at their beautiful home, to complete our kiboshed-due-to-illness-the-first-time Scotch and Chocolate tasting. As I’ve said before, I’ve always hated scotch.  To me, it tastes like putting a burning campfire stick in your mouth.  And I’ve always loved chocolate.  It is deep, dark, velvety smooth:  a single whiff of it causes me to salivate. How can these two seemingly incompatible substances possibly co-exist together on my taste buds?

I love hot chocolate. I have declared my love in many blogs before, but I will say it again, especially as this is the perfect time of year for it, in all its brown velvety glory. The weather here has been miserably fog-bound and “dreecht”: a Scottish word meaning that kind of cold wet that crawls up your back and chills between the shoulders – damp, dull, dismal – with only the occasional sparkle of sunshine.  When the sun does come out, Vancouver takes to the streets.

I have just returned from San Francisco. I adore San Francisco.  I remember it as one of the first “big foreign cities” I ever visited as a child.  In the summer of 1968 my family moved from London, Ontario to Vancouver and Dad decided to make it a big driving adventure vacation, with a trip to visit family friends who lived in San Francisco, as the penultimate stop.

I have a friend who swears he can get me to like scotch. I can’t stand it, although it is supposed to run in my veins, being of Scottish ancestry on both sides. Why would I want to imbibe something that burns my throat and makes me cough? Might as well smoke. I did visit a distillery, once. Years ago, my newly married husband and I were holidaying in the Highlands, and found ourselves with a few hours to while away, while waiting for the sun to re-appear. It was, as my cousins say “chucking it down” that day on the Isle of Skye.

I’ve had the extraordinary opportunity in the past few months, of learning to audio describe theatre performances for visually impaired patrons.  The group I work with, here in Vancouver, is Vocal Eye. I had the opportunity to meet with and talk to some of those patrons, who have eloquently told me how much the service means to them, which makes me feel good, but even more so when I hear them laugh out loud in a performance as we are describing it.