Impossible pursuits
Friday, January 20, 2012

My grandmother made the best hot chocolate in the whole World. She had always cream at home and mixed the cacao and the sugar with it (my mother mixed with milk). Then she always said “I don’t add that much sugar, because it is undrinkable if it is too sweet. It’s better if you add sugar later if you need it.” I always got whipped cream on the top.

Once I read a clean heroinist’s description of the drug as the first time is the most wonderful experience you ever had, and the rest of your time as an addict is a pursuit of that glorious moment. But it will never return. Every following intake of heroine will result in nightmares.

My life as a grownup has been a pursuit of my grandmother’s hot chocolate.

I’ve made my own, both simple – like granny did – and more exclusive, with expensive cacao or different kinds of sugar. I’ve tried to add tastes of mint as well as lemon. To find that perfect cup – not as my grand mother did it, but giving me the same feeling.

I’ve bought hot chocolate in cafes. And for just about the same price got everything between premixed powder containing of mostly sugar and a delicate hand-mixed content with heart shaped whipped milk on top.

Not even an $8 dollar cup with Valrhona chocolate beat hers.

Why do we pursuit things we know are impossible to find?

The heroinist knows it will be a nightmare. I know my grand mother’s chocolate was not in the recipe or the actual taste, but in the heart of a child sitting in her granny’s kitchen.

Yesterday I sat with my two boys, all three of us drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream on top, thinking that in some way I had found what I was looking for.