Bread and Wine: Simplest Dark Chocolate Mousse

But then there was this mousse.

I don't consider myself a fancy cook or even a fancy baker. If something I make turns out looking fancy I feel like it's kind of a fluke or something that required an abnormal amount of attention, for photos, say. Working through these recipes have made me realize that I really just don't have the patience, or wherewithal to cook delicately--I'm too messy and sometimes too practical (the kids just have to be FED sometimes, y'all), to doll up my plates too much.

But then there was this mousse. It's delicate, it's delicious. Befitting its name it's impossibly easy and elegant. I felt like Katherine Hepburn or Grace Kelly of the kitchen when I tasted those light, almost foamy chocolate bites on my spoon. I made this? You're kidding. But there it was.

Aside from a beautiful dish, the mousse and the chapter are really about the importance of food to memory, time and place. There are times when I can recall a memory only after I've tasted something that triggered it, and this recipe, mousse, is all about that for Shauna: a memory of Paris.

So let's talk about food and about travel and about some of our favorite memories.

Time to eat.

The Recipe: Simplest Dark Chocolate Mousse
Ingredients: Dark chocolate, honey, heavy cream

I mean, simple, right?

The only homemade mousse I can recall encountering was one Christmas when my mom had all this left over cream from raw milk she had bought that summer. She found a recipe for a mouse loaf thing in Southern Living and made it up. I can remember us freezing the mixing bowl and beaters to get the heavy-as-all-get-out cream to in fact, whip. Finally, it did and we had a dessert so rich we could only eat it in thin shavings. I remember we couldn't eat it all, but it was delicious.

This recipe is likewise rich, but a little more delicate in texture. Certainly a lot less fuss. The honey makes melting the chocolate so easy. For the curious I used Kroger's Private Selection dark chocolate chunks and they liquified like charms. I didn't do anything special--no freezing-- to the cream other than mix it in my laundry room with the door closed so that I wouldn't wake my napping children. I beat the cream to soft peaks, folded in my now-syrup, and it creamed obediently, setting up equally well in the refrigerator two hours later.

Shauna recommends raspberries and fresh whipped cream for garnish, which sounds heavenly. I was making dinner for a couple with a new baby the night I made this, and I sent a portion of the mousse (set up separately from our share in another dish) with a sandwich baggie of frozen raspberries and a can of sweetened whipped cream. The husband works with my husband, and Nathan reported that our friend returned the dish--empty-- to him the next morning with a big grin.

The Chapter: "Pont Neuf"
It was kind of relieving to read this chapter, Shauna's beautiful ode to the City of Lights--its people and places and of course, marvelous foods.

I haven't been to Paris, but I've sucked on my memories of Europe from last fall a dozen times, and some of my most tangible ones are tapped via my taste buds--the tea and cookies of England, the melt-in-your-mouth fried fish and chips, the soups and potatoes and cheese. The hot sausages we tasted in Amsterdam, its ice cream and flow of chocolate everywhere. I remember these things and they are still clearly with me, even if some memories have already drifted.

I use food to stoke my children's memories, making them hot tea with lemon and honey in the afternoons and recall how we made it in England; we eat "sweets" and recall the brightly colored candy aisles overseas, stuffed with chocolates and fruit candies, even in the smallest groceries. I make them (well, my daughter) mac'n' cheese with white cheddar cheese and green peas on the side--one of her favorite meals in England.

These little sacraments, we pass them back and forth, to remember, to remind ourselves what it was like and all we learned.

That said, I haven't gone out of my way to make an "English dinner" for anyone in our family or acquaintance. I tried a few things--some candies I brought back, an infused butter I made, at different times,  but it was a little too hard. My family does not have the same experiences I do; these foods do not hold much meaning for them.

But they do love my stories, and that is something I can give them; even the stories of food for them to marvel over, laugh at, and I can feed them that way, from that place.

Maybe it's my doing this blog, or maybe it's just letting my mind work the way it was created to, but I'm believing more and more that food is, or perhaps more correctly can be, terribly, profound. It is easy to access, but rich in layers and textures and flavors. It is intrinsically shareable--we have all eaten something wonderful (or terrible!), yes? We can then share that  the experience, with someone--maybe in actuality, in a shared meal, or metaphorically, through stories and essays.

To be honest, as much as I appreciated Shauna's essay on Paris, it wasn't that important to me. She wrote with the rapture that people who travel overseas, talk (I know it myself now) and I know it's a thing, that most people won't want to hear it as much as you want to tell it, and that you'll suddenly b closer to the people you experienced it with than just about anyone else n your life.

What I do love about this piece is its sharing, and its permission--permission to love a place so wildly and freely, and to experience it through food without shame or gluttony or excess. It's a kind of love-making, an enjoying, that creates more love; a sharing and allowing, and inviting, to others to do the same.

And that of course, is the entire point of anything.