Bitter. Sweet. Alive.

A few words about chocolate...and some good stuff for readers and writers

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“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.” ― Joanne Harris, Chocolat 

In this issue

• My attempts to link chocolate to literature fall short

• I write about it anyway 

• Then I found someone whose writing is rooted in her work as a chocolate maker and my faith is restored

• Also: new resources for readers and writers

But first… 

Several members of our Spark community are impacted more directly than others by what is unfolding in Ukraine. A few live in the safety of other countries while their families or friends hunker in their homes located in recently-invaded cities. Others have sons, daughters, husbands, siblings, and friends in the military who have been deployed or may soon be deployed. While there may be some among us who are equipped to discuss the geopolitical factors at work here, I am not. I can only ask that those of us who move in relative safety keep our friends in our minds and hearts as we read the headlines. 

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There is no graceful transition to the far-from-weighty subject I’ve chosen to tackle today, so let’s dive in: 

Where do you stand on chocolate? 

• Love it or hate it?

• Do you prefer the sweetness of milk chocolate, the bittersweetness of “dark” chocolate, or do you like it “straight up” - no sugar between you and the darkest most mysterious flavor of chocolate itself?

• Do you harbor affection for the stuff called “white chocolate” - basically cocoa butter with the rest of the bean left out of the process? 

Chocolate & Me: A Coming of Age Story (sort of)

Sweet

I’m in Mrs. Ingerson’s classroom with the rest of my fellow fifth graders and the older sixth graders. We are all well-fed and sweaty after lunch and recess, sitting at our desks for my favorite moment of every school day. Mrs. Ingerson opens Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and for the next twenty minutes or so, we are spellbound as she reads us another chapter. Every chapter is riveting to me but perhaps the most was when Willie Wonka and the children were cruising down a river of chocolate. Would I have been Charlie who obeyed the rules and was simply grateful when Willie Wonka dipped a mug into the river of chocolate and offered it to me? Or would I have been Augustus Gloop, unable to control myself and topple into the river of thick, brown, perfect smoothness? 

Bitter

I’m thirteen or fourteen, standing in the little room off the kitchen in our childhood home where dishes and dry goods are stored. My gaze skips over the lower shelves stacked with tuna, peanut butter, jelly, an army of soup cans, boxes of Hamburger Helper, powdered milk, flour, etc. I am eyeing the uppermost shelf labeled with a piece of masking tape and magic marker: THE FORBIDDEN SHELF. This is where my mother keeps scarce, hard-to-find or expensive items procured on trips to Boston and Connecticut or by special arrangement with Armand Abelli, the proprietor of the Lancaster Fruit Company on Main Street. This shelf is for the canned hearts of palm she puts into salads when company from below the Notch comes to visit. There are little oblong cans of smoked oysters, special vinegars, fancy crackers, small mysterious jars of spices and seasonings.

Behind all of these, tucked out of sight, is chocolate: the bags of semi-sweet chips she puts in cookies, the rich dark chocolate bars she saves and uses to make her famous chocolate mousse, and bars of unsweetened chocolate. I know that my mother will be gone for at least an hour. I push a chair over and climb up. All that’s left (I’ve been here before) is the unsweetened baking chocolate. I unwrap it. I inhale the aroma. I break off two squares and put them in my mouth. The shock of the bitterness almost makes me spit it out but I don’t. The bitterness turns to something darker and richer the longer I hold the squares in my mouth. I don’t love it – yet. But I don’t hate it either. And when I’m done, I want more. 

Alive

This morning, after coffee, after breakfast, I unwrap a bar of Montezuma’s Absolute Black Chocolate and place a chunk of it into steaming milk. I nibble a little more as I stir the milk and chocolate in my mug and watch the melting chocolate swirl in the hot milk. The mug warms my hands as I make my way to my desk. The warmth anchors me as I read through what I wrote the day before. A new thought clicks. I write it down. I sip some more. I drain the mug and lick the spoon. I am happy to be awake. Happy to be alive. 

Words and Chocolate

I love reading. I love chocolate. Or, more accurately, I need them both in daily doses. I crave words. I crave chocolate. Words comfort me, stimulate me, make me laugh, make me cry. I always want more. Chocolate can comfort, stimulate, and make my whole body pay attention. I always want more. 

And what I want most is the darkest kind. Anything below 90% cacao is too sweet. The mood-altering traits of good chocolate have nothing to do with sugar. I want to feel the dark- almost-but-not-quite bitter smoothness of a Montezuma bar on my tongue. I have been known, in a pinch, to stir dutch process cocoa and water into a paste and eat it. Even inferior chocolate has the ability to infuse me with a sense of well-being that coffee, to a lesser degree provides. 

Obsession, however, does not come without a price. I try to buy chocolate that is confirmed as “fair trade” but I notice that, in the absence of solid confirmation by the maker of my favorite, I still buy it. Books gain and edge here. To my knowledge, my reading obsession has never harmed others.

A River of Stories “Sneaked” Into Chocolate

I’ve never met the woman behind the Map Journal, a publication by a chocolate maker that feeds the reader and chocolate lover in me. Written under what I believe is a pseudonym,  MacKenzie Rivers, the writer is a mystery to me. She is or was a river guide who somewhere along the line made the leap from the white-water rapids of western rivers to the making of chocolate from the beans to the final delicious product. She says in her About page, “I’ve been sneaking stories into chocolate since 2014.” She also sneaks chocolate into stories — here, embedded in a recounting of adrenaline and river running, are the secret stash of Swiss Miss packets she tucked away to help her cope with the stress.

Some of my favorite short reads from the Map Journal:

• Love in the Time of Cacao: the true story of chocolate flavor has been on the banned list for a long time

• Eyes Wide Shut: on tasting chocolate

• Girl Meets Bean: the leap, the discovery, the birth of a chocolate maker

The Best Chocolate Novels (and Movies) 

The Novels

I can think of only three memorable books that have successfully linked chocolate and literary pleasure together. Each achieves the right balance of bitter to sweet, dark to light, sharp to smooth. If you know of others, please let us all know 

Click on this photo to find these and all the other books at the Spark Community Recommendations page at bookshop.org

• Like Water For Chocolate - Laura Esquivel (if you want to try the recipe for the chocolate mole in this beautiful little novel, here it is) 

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

• Chocolat - Joanne Harris 

The Movies

Like Water for Chocolate

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (the Gene Wilder version) 

Chocolat 

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Resources for Readers & Writers

Here are a couple of recent additions to our growing list of resources for readers and for writers. Click on the links below to check out all the resources and please suggest any that you have found valuable.

Resources for Readers and Book Clubs

• Well Read with With Anna Bonet - Anna Bonet is a Welsh-born, London-based journalist whose “all-time favourite thing to do is recommend great books.” Two Sundays a month, she sends out a newsletter. The first will feature 3-5 overviews of new books, the second will include books old and new and the theme that connects them. 

Resources for Writers and Writers’ Groups

• Writing by Writers Founded by author, teacher, and speaker, Pam Houston, WxW hosts multi-day writing workshops for people interested in writing fiction, nonfiction, memoir and poetry. The workshops are taught by nationally known, published authors, who are adept at teaching the craft of writing to all levels of student. In addition, participants learn how to read other’s work critically and apply those lessons to their own writing.

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That’s it for this week. I’m working on a few new things that will change things up a bit here at Spark. Among these: at least once a month, I plan to write less and ask more. Instead of a long newsletter with a lot of links, I’ll post a few small sentences or paragraphs with a question or two for all to comment on. In the land of Substack, this is called a Discussion Thread. It will allow me to get out of the way a bit and provide an opportunity for more interaction.

Until then, thank you. Let me know what’s been on your mind lately. What are you reading? What do you want to read?

As always, you can find any book mentioned here at the Spark Community Recommendations page at bookshop.org where every sale benefits local bookstores and the commission we raise can be used to support literacy programs.

BTW - if you liked what you read today, scroll down or up and click that little heart button. I’ve learned that every click helps others find SPARK a little more easily and the more the merrier!

Ciao for now.

Gratefully,

Betsy

P.S. And now your moment of Zen…Death Valley

Anna Lynch finds serenity in a landscape that might seem desolate to others. She writes: “Here is my photo of the most Zen place I have ever been in my life. I know, it looks pretty dismal, but I promise you it's special.  It's in the Golden Canyon at Death Valley. My husband and I visited there in the spring of 2018 and hiked the canyon trail. Toward the end of the trail, we entered the bottom of the canyon where there was not a single noise - no insects, no wind, nothing. I don't believe I have ever experienced silence like that. We were so blown away by the silence, that we sat and meditated for quite a while just to soak in the experience.  recommend it if you are looking for some peace and quiet. 

Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”

What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.

Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone  -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed. 

I can’t wait to see what you send!