lycanthropia

Lie on your sofa in the fading afternoon light, savoring a tiny morsel of François Pralus Le 100% Criollo chocolate, which is, as its name would in fact indicate, 100% chocolate, which explains why it is a tiny morsel. No sugar, no dairy, no any blooming thing, just dark glossy waxy pungent heaven—sent courtesy of the charming Ms. Dianne Cowan of Cambridge, MA, who gamely engaged in chocolate swapping before it grows too hot here in Phoenix for you to put anything in the post that melts (and who further sent a bar of grainy, sugary Taza 80% Stone-Ground, in partial exchange for some locally produced, magical-herbal-essence-infused Wei Relaxed 68%).

Consider, as you allow the almost black, slightly acidic and flowery François Pralus to melt in your mouth, that what it would really be good for, would be making truffles. Decide that you have two things to celebrate—first of all, you somehow managed to get admitted to the University of Houston’s five-year PhD program, with a five-year teaching contract and various bits of financial extras; and second, you recently engaged in yet another profitless email back-and-forth with your ex, with one big difference: This time, you feel emotionally unencumbered and untortured now that it’s over. You feel, in fact, light and free. Which is probably because you know you’ll be moving away soon. Lurch up from the sofa abruptly, causing the cat to lift her head and complain.

Walk slowly into the kitchen, because both your feet are asleep, and make

IMPROMPTU MAMANESQUE MEXICAN TRUFFLES

1. Break the remaining chocolate into a small saucepan and put the heat on low. Very, very low. Cocoa butter melts at skin temperature. Do not rush this. Do not, do not.

2. Drop a good-sized chunk of unsalted pasture butter into the pan. Jab at the whole thing with a fork, sliding around the melting chocolate and remembering Maman’s wicked chocolate ice-cream sauce, which involved a whole stick of butter and an entire can of condensed sweetened milk (aka “Eagle Brand”). Remember how, whenever she was putting most of a stick of butter into something, she would say, in dulcet tones, “Look away, darling….”

(Pause for a moment, rubbing one tingling foot against the other, remembering you and Elizabeth both sneaking spoonsful of the sauce straight out of its jar in the refrigerator, without even heating it up first, much less bothering to pour it over ice cream. It melting in your mouth as you moved back to Maman’s bedroom, a brief time-out during a long day or night of nursing her as best you could, not knowing what you were doing but learning how to do it as you went, changing linens, changing wound dressings, changing meds, flushing out her J-tube, flushing out her Hickman, S-A-S-H, Saline Antibiotic Saline Heperin, flicking the bubbles out of the line because she hated to see them, flushing the blood out of the line because she hated to see it, salty-sweet almond-fragrant chocolate still melting in your mouth, soft South Texas air coming gently in at the French doors—)

3. Open the cupboard and take out the vanilla and almond flavorings, both of these now alcohol-based, since you no longer live with a recovering alcoholic and therefore no longer have to use the glycerin-based flavorings that are weak by comparison, and require about four times as much. Congratulate self on this, as well as on the fact that you can have wine with dinner and it’s no big freaking deal.

4. Go back to the cupboard for the cinnamon. Dust melting chocolate with a disappointingly small amount, and upend bottle, peering in to verify that, yes, it is all gone.

Wonder how it is that cinnamon is always purchased for you by men—this bottle having come from the boyfriend before the ex, the one who dumped you because you were too crazy for him. Or really, you were too crazy together. Which wasn’t untrue.

Remember that when you moved into the house with your ex, the one where you lived together for three years, it was a sign to you of great domestic companionship that you each had brought your cinnamon and now they would be blended. Remember photographing the two cinnamons side by side and planning to use this picture to illustrate a blogpost about the delights of harmonious cohabitation. Remember not ever writing this blogpost because you were too busy having fun living together.

Be momentarily stricken as you remember coming home the day after he had abruptly moved out without telling you and finding your cinnamon all alone in the cupboard, and feeling outraged, and thinking blindly How could he, how could he just take his cinnamon just like that, without so much as, as, as—

Decide you are going to buy your own damn cinnamon at the next available opportunity.

5. Put a frozen gordita in the toaster to toast while the chocolate melts. Eat it when it pops up even though it’s too hot and the molten refritos burn your tongue. Sniffle when the jalapeño hits your soft palate. Eat tiny bites off its edge with the chocolatey fork. Tell yourself defensively it’s like molé.

6. When the last bit of chocolate has melted, beat in the flavorings and a goodly quantity of dark organic agave nectar. Then start pouring in a thin stream of heavy cream, beating, beating, beating. Taste. Add more agave. Add more cream. Beat until the cream has turned the mahogany-black chocolate into more of a, well, chocolate brown color.

Contemplate most recent series of communications with ex, which began under the evil influence of the supermoon and went like this:

You text: I love you.
[Furtively, romantically, beneath supermoon with friends.]
He texts: I love you.
[Pause.]
He emails: Yay we can be friends!
You email: Um, not likely, for as already stated I still love you.
[Pause.]
You almost: Run into him in a parking lot.
You don’t: Speak to or look at him, but hurry past, head down. It is the closest you have been to him since last August and the breakup.
He doesn’t: Speak to you either.
You agonize: About this for several days. What if he thinks you were snubbing him! What if he’s mad at you.
Your sponsor: Tells you not to do anything.
You finally email: So, Sunday night was awkward, huh.
He emails: What are you talking about?
You think: OMG HOW FUCKING TYPICAL, I HAVE BEEN WRINGING MY HANDS FOR DAYS OVER WHETHER I HURT HIS FEELINGS, I WALKED RIGHT PAST HIM AND HE DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE BECAUSE HE WAS TALKING TO A WOMAN, HA HA! HA HA! HA HA, HA HA!
[Pause.]
He emails: Blah blah blah me me me so yeah I do still love you too but hey listen [insert very fancy reasoning/mentation about why he can't be with you], in summary because I have not yet learned to tell right from wrong I therefore have no business being in a relationship with anyone at this point in my life, even though almost fifty, and also in case you hadn’t noticed me me me me me more about ME!
[Pause.]
You email: Nothing.
You start: Looking on craigslist for a flat in Houston.

Will you move August 1? It looks increasingly likely. Frankly you kind of wish you were moving tomorrow.

7. Transfer pan into the refrigerator so the truffles can start setting up. Get out Dagoba unsweetened cocoa powder to roll truffles in. Wonder how Ms. Cowan liked the Wei Relaxed.

Prop open the back door for the cat, using the empty green recycling bucket which you have had for a decade now, it being a reclaimed pickle bucket from a bagel place in Santa Fe. Wonder what it’s like to live somewhere that’s not the desert Southwest. Allow yourself to become prematurely nostalgic. Watch amused as the cat races from front door to back door, back and forth, back and forth, her claws scrabbling on the dark hardwood floor, as the sun sets and the lingering traces of chocolate cycle in your mouth through their different flavors, turning from sour and bitter to sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.