In the bleak midwinter

This afternoon I drove to meet some friends in Oakland, and as I drove I listened to a Chanticleer CD. As I drove and watched the various scenes around me -- storm clouds gathering in the patches of sky between the sky scrapers, commuters and old people waiting at a bus shelter, a street person lurching across Broadway, business people on their phones -- all backed with transcendent harmony, it seemed as though I was driving through a beautiful, heartbreaking movie. I remembered a time when I was 19 and riding my bike along the ocean-front boardwalk in Santa Barbara, on my way to class. A storm was gathering that morning, also, and the sunrise set the clouds off from the ocean and the sky between them in a striking syncopation of grays that transitioned into the beautiful gold and green of the beach and cliffs. I stopped my bike and took it all in, and it occurred to me, there at 19, that I had only a few short days of life on this earth, and that I would miss it once I had gone. There are times when my world already echoes with my former presence, with who I was, what I hoped to accomplish. I wonder who I will be, what I have left to do, what difference I have yet to make, and for whom. The Christmas season always reminds me that I need to be thankful -- that I must be present and grateful for every humble moment, and not be fooled by mundane afternoons. 

In other news, holiday candy making is finally done. That cold I posted about turned into a mild case of walking pneumonia, which delayed me a week. But after a five-day course of antibiotics, I bounced back into the kitchen and promptly ruined two batches of lavender caramel. It was the weather -- way too humid. We don't have air conditioning, and so I gave up on caramels and made lavender truffles instead. The Hunky Scientist deemed them "interesting," but I liked them just fine. Then I candied some orange peels, dried them, and dipped them in semisweet chocolate, shaped some marzipan and did the same with it, made some almond clusters, then half-dipped some dried apricots. Very pretty. We've given most of it away, but have about four pounds left here at the house to disperse. As a Christmas gift to myself, I bought a big book called "Chocolates & Confections: Formula, theory, and technique for the artisan confectioner." The editor in me can't stand that prissy subtitle, but the candy maker in me is inspired. I can't wait to test out some of the recipes next year. For now, I've put away my dipping forks. There's just enough chocolate left for my husband to use in my birthday cake in January.

Now it's Christmas time.

It never feels like Christmas until I start making chocolates. And I started yesterday in a big way. I had four friends over for a chocolate-making hands-on tutorial and production-fest. We made:

• Semisweet fruit and nut bark
  
• Milk chocolate walnut bark with golden raisins
  
• Mocha truffles enrobed in milk chocolate
  
• Lavender caramels enrobed in semisweet chocolate
  
• Cointreau truffles (that's still in my refrigerator waiting to be enrobed)

I think we probably made about 25 pounds of chocolates in total, and we hummed Christmas carols for part of the time, until we realized that Jason, one of our kitchen-mates, has to listen to treacly carols all day at his job at Costco. Still, the Christmas season began for me. The day began at 7:30, when I got up to start the coffee beans steeping in hot cream for the mocha truffles. Then I did the same with another batch of hot cream, but added lavender for the caramels. Then I poured all the ingredients for the two barks into staging bowls, so I wouldn't forget to add anything (it's happened before). My four friends showed up at 11, and we began a full day of work. We used every mixing bowl in the house, and every dish towel. There was melted chocolate everywhere. My co-chocolatiers had never made barks before, and when they plunged their hands into melted chocolate to mix in the nuts and fruit, the "I have both my hands wrist-deep in chocolate!" look on their faces was priceless. We broke around 2 for some pizza, and the last two die-hards went home around 6. I finished cleaning up at 8:30.

I've decided it's a lot more fun to make chocolates with friends than it is to make them by myself, which is how I've done it in years past. Bob helps me with barks, but usually I do all the other candies myself. It's much more efficient to have more hands in the kitchen -- we got two days' worth of production done in one. The only downside is that my friends made off with most of my inventory, so I need to do a couple more batches of things, caramels in particular. But they paid for the cost of ingredients, it's just out the time. That's not a big deal -- time seems to just slide by when I'm making candy; it's never a chore.

In other news, I have a raging cold. I was just achy and a little sore-throaty yesterday. But last night it was full-on congestion, which meant very little sleep, and today I feel like a cable car hit me. I slept in until 10 this morning, which meant no church and no visit with my elderly friend Betty. She doesn't need a cold from me, anyway. Neither will there will be any chocolate making. It's a lie-around-and-drink-tea kind of day.