Here Comes the New Fall Chocolate Delights

By Cal Orey

The Writing Gourmet

I miss Chocolate Heaven. Each day I go to work on the honey bee book, I feel like I'm in Honey Bee Limbo and I'm forgetting my last love--chocolate. It's still summer, the season touted for its fresh fruits, salads, lemonade and iced tea. Chocolate isn't a big deal during hot days. But I'm feeling the beginning of fall at Lake Tahoe, and that means baked breads, muffins, casseroles and homemade pies. Best of all, it means chocolate...

Don't get me wrong. I adore healing honey and its healing byproducts. I enjoy working in Honey Land. It's intriguing. But I do miss the day of chocolate, sweet dark chocolate packed in pretty little boxes left by the UPS man on my doorstep, rain, snow, sleet, and shine. No worries. Boxes of honey varietals are still keeping me happy. Tonight I worked on a chapter while nibbling on honeycomb (and sweet memories of chocolate truffles teased me).

Come fall, when The Healing Powers of Honey book is out the door and in flight to New York, I'll remember this night--without chocolate. It is a time of fall hints (it will be 38 degrees tonight and leaves are beginning to turn amber) and the warm day air of summer. It makes me feel like I'm in a wasteland--something like being in between Chocolate Heaven and Honey Land.

I'm thinking the perfect Rx to get me out of this worker bee funk is chocolate--the good stuff like I've savored throughout the seasons. Think New York's Christopher Norman's to San Francisco's Michael Recchiuti's Confections.

Or perhaps I'll bake Cal's Earthquake Cake (the recipe created by Gemma Sciabica--complete with ricotta cheese is in my book The Healing Powers of Chocolate, Kensington 2010). It seems timely as our golden state has been shaking a bit, from the 3.9 south of Gilroy to the 3.5 north of Truckee near me. So, while I'm coping with Earth changes (my dog Seth sensed the last shaker and jumped up into my lap!) and working and talking with passionate and hardworking beekeepers in the midwest and around the globe, a slice of dark chocolate cake with an Italian flair may be the cure. Its feel-good compounds, like serotonin to PEA, page 39, may make this worker bee continue onward. It's time to buzz off and see if I can find a chocolate pistole in the file cabinet.