I still remember my first taste of Hot Fudge Sauce.  It was in a Tin Roof Sundae at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour, in the Lougheed Mall – the same mall where my mother sold shoes at the Hudson’s Bay Company. I had never tasted anything so rich and exotic.  It was a warm sauce on cold ice cream!  And salty red skinned peanuts to top it all off! After that first taste, it became a weekly ritual for me to go with my Dad to pick my Mum up from work on Friday nights, at 9pm. 

Another Opening, another show … and another excuse to play about with “theme” chocolate. Although technically, they will have opened by the time I see it, I am thrilled to be going, this weekend, to see a whole bunch of friends perform at the wonderful summer Shakespeare festival, here in Vancouver, Bard on the Beach. The show I will be attending involves all three parts of Henry VI, contracted down and collectively known as The Wars of the Roses, directed by Christopher Weddell.

Two weeks ago, I was working “in the lab” (my kitchen) on an experiment to find the perfect balance of flavour intensity between a dark chocolate ganache and a very good Jamaican rum, to make a centre for a truffle. This is a basic experiment, to help the novice chocolatier determine quantities needed for consistency of good flavour, without sacrificing a whole batch, if mistakes occur.

I feel like phoning my younger son’s super-cool Science teacher, and inviting her over to the kitchen for this week’s exploration. I really want to put on my lab coat (I was given one, by a doctor friend, for auditions.  I have, I think quite convincingly, played many a nurse/lab technician on TV), and my elder son’s chemistry glasses.  Okay, maybe that is taking it a little too far. I am delving into the research section of the Ecole Chocolat curriculum, and am conducting Philippe Conticini’s Flavor Experiment.

I feel kind of like I am playing with mud pies or clay, this week. And it is great fun. There is still so much material I have to explore in the Ecole Chocolat curriculum, it is a bit like returning to my favourite section of the big downtown library, where the scripts are kept. A mug of coffee, a quiet corner, some peace and quiet, and my fingers get itchy as I suddenly find another technique I need to try. This week, with spring showers keeping the weather cool, it seems like the perfect opportunity to try out some chocolate sculptures.

Even though I have been both a chocolate lover and an ice cream lover my entire life, I never used to like chocolate ice cream. Insipid chocolate flavour, sugary sweet, melting in an unattractive greyish puddle, there was no way I was going to eat that. I preferred almost any other flavour, and would pass it up entirely if it was the only thing available. Have I mentioned I was a picky eater, as a child?

Enough of the sweet stuff. I am exploring chocolate’s savoury side, this week. I think it has to do with me being fascinated with chocolate’s roots, before the sugar was added, and those fascinating people:  the Mayans and the Aztecs.

Mmm. I am in sensory overload. I have been roasting hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts in preparation for making hand panned chocolate covered hazelnuts, and Gianduja [pronounced gyan-DO-ya].  What is it?  A delicious Italian inspired nut paste and chocolate mixture.

I don’t like cherries.  I never have. We had two huge, and aesthetically beautiful cherry trees growing in our yard, when I was growing up. Inevitably, when running around bare-footed, in the summer when the cherries were ripe, I would step on them, and the feeling of them squishing underfoot was akin to stepping on a slug (another thing I always managed to do at least once a year – and we have BIG slugs in British Columbia).

As my sons begin the annual rite of course review, trying to remember and apply skills, facts and formulae they learned months ago, I am in complete sympathy.  I realize, with a sigh, that I too, need some review in basic chocolatier skills. I go to “the chocolate cupboard”, where I keep all of my Ecole Chocolat supplies, separate from those of the rest of the kitchen, and gaze at the blocks of fine chocolate and tools I am privileged to have.

As the air begins to smell sweet with apple and cherry blossom, the ground freshly turned as hopeful gardeners get ready to plant, the dawn chorus of birds getting me up earlier and earlier every morning, I am beginning to feel a tiniest bit of warmth on my shoulders, and I begin to feel restless. Much like the March Hare, who is said to go mad every spring, capering about, dancing madly, (he’s actually trying to attract the attention of a mate) I feel the need to get out and stretch, bend and run through the mud.