home gossip bachelors reflections

This year we have an offering of chocolate from Ben Stallings, cookies from Chris Coen, and some solstice lights from Jamie Heckert. Our special feature is Plastic Tinsel Bachelors of 2007. We also have our ever popular gossip, some reflections on the holiday season, a card, and a poem.

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Double Ginger Shortbread Cookies

Chris Coen loves these "Double Ginger Shortbread Cookies." She says " If you married the fragrance of a lemon with the buttery goodness of shortbread, you'd get these cookies.  At first you really smell the ginger, but that moderates as they get a bit older and the citrus scent becomes stronger.  The gingery flavor is never really intense." She found the recipe on CooksRecipes.com (which wants us to say it's "a popular recipe and cooking site offering free recipes, articles on entertaining and menu planning, helpful cooking tips and charts, a cooking dictionary, plus an interactive cooking forum" if we link to it, though really we have no legal obligations whatsoever in that regard).

Click thumbnail for full sized picture.

Poinsettias blaze lush beside the walkway,
planted in bare earth, a tropical pretense
that need only last until December 26th.
Aspen leaves
slump wetly across the freshly turned soil,
bright arrows pointing away
towards the native bushes,
heavy clumps of scarlet berries burning deeply.

Aspen leaves under a humid sky
glowing such a yellow that my mind tastes
fresh, ripe pears, a hint of wood, juices running down my chin.
The pears are long gone,
but here the aspen leaves
glisten in the mist.

A hallucinatory green, blossoming vines
shine through the rain, twining above lights, whispering
false rumors of warmth and languid evenings.
Shoppers scurry inside,
shaking off the damp and chill.
Christmas music tinkles in the background.
Displays are thick with "snow," and on the cards
bare aspen frieze patterns
stark against still night.

by Ben Stallings

I've just discovered the simplest, cheapest way to make really good organic chocolate.  :-)  This tip may just belong in the Earthling's Handbook and/or Plastic Tinsel Joy.

You'll recall how much I like chocolate, but I've cut way back since I learned that most chocolate that isn't certified organic and/or fair trade is made from cocoa processed by child slaves in Cote d'Ivoire. When I asked my favorite chocolate chip manufacturer (Guittard) whether their product was made by slaves, they said, "We've tried buying fair-trade cocoa, but it's just not up to our quality standards."  So I don't buy from them anymore.

But in Fairfield, my only organic chocolate options are high-end candy bars and chips (about 3x the price of slave chocolate) or bulk Dutch-process cocoa powder, which is affordable but not very versatile.  Cocoa powder works in baking recipes where it doesn't need to dissolve, but in more liquid recipes like hot chocolate it refuses to stay in solution, so you wind up with a bitter sludge at the bottom of the cup.  And when I just want a bite of chocolate, powder doesn't hit the spot!

The solution (so to speak) hit me today as I was about to put some sweetened condensed milk in my coffee.  I tried putting cocoa powder in the condensed milk, and what do you know, it dissolved perfectly, making a smooth confection the texture of frosting that tasted like the center of a chocolate truffle.  Then I put a sticky spoonful in my otherwise black coffee, and in a few seconds I had something resembling a mocha. No precipitate, no high price tag, and no slavery.

But then, my standards aren't as high as some people's.  I rushed a spoonful to my upstairs neighbor, who relies on chocolate to maintain her trademark optimism, and she pronounced it "awesome."  The real test would be to bring it to the Dutchman who runs the Chocolate Cafe in town, whose standards are so high he not only doesn't sell anything organic or fair trade but doesn't sell anything American made; only European will do.  Or perhaps the Belorussian woman who works near Becca's house and looks down on German chocolate.

In any case, it's good enough for most purposes, and I hope you'll give it a try!  Enjoy!