Chocolate Party

For the past year, my backup dancers and I have treated ourselves to occasional themed celebrations. Remember our Harry Potter "party"? Our Mocktoberfests? Our Not-Christmas? The recreation of our wedding? We try to keep ourselves entertained and avoid languishing, which is one New York Times author's shockingly apt diagnosis of a feeling I've had for months - see the description at the end of my Feb. 15 post.

Some weeks ago, my small backup dancer requested a Chocolate Party, so we did it this past weekend. We made a garland from fabric scraps and toilet paper rolls that was intended to look like wrapped sweets, and we dressed in brown. We watched some educational and some entertaining short videos. We read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Brainstorming for the party

We made "Rocky Road Brownies" from a Hershey's cookbook (using no Hershey products, which I disdain). The brownies turned out well. 

To get that toasted look, I recommend cooking it for the full 27 minutes without break (I didn't, and it was slightly undercooked), then spreading on the topping and putting it under the broiler very briefly. (For another good--perhaps too good--recipe from that cookbook, see this post).

I ordered some random chocolate bars from a local business, Barometer Chocolate, and we sampled them.

I cooked a chicken for the first time in I don't know how long, because I just wasn't sure whether the mole sauce I wanted to make would be good without it, and this was a "meat as a treat" occasion for me. Having now tried it with chicken, I think it would be good with tofu cubes, but you would cook that for far less time. You wouldn't need the slow cooker. In any case, this mole recipe was fine, but nothing special. Perhaps I'll seek out another one.

I served it with bread and with "Charred Cauliflower and Shishito Peppers with Picada Sauce" (Saveur), again chosen for the chocolate in the recipe. I did not follow the recipe as written. I balked at the call for a cup each of olive oil and canola oil. Whaaa? I used maybe a third of a cup of olive oil, and didn't realize I was supposed to save the olive oil with the garlic; I fished the garlic out. Then I was confused why I would get rid of the olive oil, wipe out the pan, and add a cup of canola oil. So I added about a third of a cup of canola oil to the olive oil already in the pan, and feared being blinded by the splattering oil as I cooked the peppers. After I removed the peppers, I just added all the remaining ingredients to the oil mix. 

And after working my way through all that confusion, it was fine, but it really could have used more chocolate.

But you can't go wrong with the Rocky Road Brownies, the boutique chocolates, and The Bread Stand's pain au chocolat.

And you can't go wrong viewing meat as a treat for special occasions, and eating plant-based food most of the time. It doesn't represent an extreme choice. No one is forcing us to do it (see "Don't Close The Grill Just Yet"). We do it voluntarily because the global consequences--like famine--of climate change are increasingly and staggeringly bad, and shifting our diets away from animal products is a step every one of us can take to address climate change.

Did you know that Earth Day was April 22? The Times published great pieces for kids and adults that speak to the problems and solutions of climate change. Read them both, but I found the kid version exceptionally compelling for an audience of any age.

I'm on the Green Team at my backup dancer's school, and as the school community is not yet all back in the buildings (STILL WAITING, well over a year after the start of the pandemic), we put together a virtual celebration of the various ways that each of us acts to protect the planet. If you have nine minutes, watch this inspiring video, most of which is narrated by my backup dancer! I am proud to say it has been viewed 549 times.