The Salty Spoon

A few days ago, I called home during the afternoon to say hi to John and give him an update on how my day was looking.  When I have a sense of when I’m coming home, I try to remember to let him know – mostly so 8pm doesn’t jump out of my file drawer and say “hey, you should probably share your plans with the other person in your home who eats dinner so he can, you know, decide whether or not to wait for you.”  8pm can be kind of judgmental, but it always has a point.
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This is one of those recipes that neatly achieves a little fanciness without requiring much in the way of special ingredients or prep time.  I can’t remember when I first tasted spicy hot chocolate, but I definitely fell in love.  Smooth, earthy chocolate is punctuated beautifully by the power twins of cinnamon and cayenne.  You can certainly exclude the Drambouie if you wish, but know that you are missing out (unless you are pregnant or otherwise medically excluded from alcoholic beverages, in which case hit the whipped cream with gusto and carry on with your spicy, chocolatey self).

I recommend Dagoba Hot Chocolate here, though you can use any hot chocolate powder.  Stop, go back, read that again.  I’m taking you through a shortcut by using a hot chocolate powder, rather than unsweetened chocolate that you sugar up yourself.  Do not try to make this with plain old Hershey’s, and definitely do not send me a nasty email after doing so wherein you tell me how yucky your drink turned out.  Hot chocolate powders have sugar already blended in.  I like Dagoba because it’s sweet, but not overly so.  I’ve made hot chocolate from absolute scratch, and wasn’t happy enough with the results to be interested in the extra steps.

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My name is Bria, and I like to cook. The Salty Spoon is a chronicle of my journey through food, wine, cooking, and the other adventures that start and end in my kitchen.

I cook as often as I can. Sometimes my work is simply prohibitive, but I do my best. At present, we are living on one income, so eating take out on a regular basis simply isn’t an option. And honestly, I don’t wish it were. We live in a very residential part of Hollywood - it’s definitely not the restaurant-saturated world of LA’s west side. If we lived in Brentwood, Santa Monica, or Westwood, in walking distance of several mid-priced restaurants (or, for that matter, in a location in our current neighborhood that didn’t require a Herculean undertaking to give delivery directions), things might be different. As soon as I leave my office, I start counting down to the moment when I can ditch the trousers, ditch the thong, and relax into regular underwear and smooshy pants. You know what I mean - knit, elastic waist business that may or may not be sweat pants (currently a lovely drawstring number from Old Navy, $8.99 on sale - yesssss). As far as I’m concerned, stopping for food on the way home is a) expensive and b) prolongs the time between office-leaving and smooshy pants-donning.

And the upshot of most of my weeknight cooking is even better - in the time it would take me to stop on my way home and pick up takeout, I can change my clothes and have food on plates. Smooshy pants: 1, barfy Panda Express: 0.

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