La Correspondance

Equally the best and the worst part of traveling is being off on your own. Free to make your own choices, spend any measure of time trying on dresses you may or may never buy and there’s no one to hurry you along when all you really want to do is indulge the desire to peruse around. Then there are the days you remember that everyone is new, while you’ve known them a few months, they don’t know anything of your true history or what you need when everything seems to set you off. Those friends you’ve had for years who’ve seen you through incomprehensible joy through to the ugliest cry sessions known to man are the only cure.

But while you can’t be in two places at once, and while you can’t afford to bring all your friends with you there’s something to be said about pen on paper, something more than just an email. I was thankful to have received many postcards and letters, each hung proudly over my desk to remind me of what a great group of friends I’ve acquired. On one of my outings I’d found a little black waist apron and couldn’t help myself, as my long time kitchen soulmate, Cheri needed to have it. She was delighted by the surprise in the mail and I was even more surprised when she sent back a little bubble envelope that weighed a decent amount and cost a fortune to send and inside was a large bar of Whittaker’s Dark Cocoa and a letter that asked me to incorporate in my culinary adventures abroad as though she were sharing the kitchen with me. I knew right away what I would make, the one dessert that so perfectly captures French decadence which I had yet to delve into, Mousse au Chocolat. What you’d love to hear is that it turned out perfectly and was light and airy but the truth is the instructions I followed were even more French than the dessert themselves, leaving out “seemingly obvious” instructions so it was a thick gooey yummy dessert that we were all happy to enjoy and tasted fabulous but was more of a ganache than a mousse. In any case, I was delighted to share my kitchen with her, if she’d have been there perhaps it would have been light and fluffy… {Thankfully I have made it since and have mastered the technique}