Introduction

"My new healthy eating starts tomorrow" - These words that I uttered yesterday seem to be so easily pushed aside as I stir real lumps of chocolate into hot milk simmering on the stove. Only having tasted it once (OK, twice) I seem to have a craving for the hot chocolate that I had tasted in O'connell's during my weekend visit to Cork, Ireland. Having a mother who thought making hot chocolate was tearing open a sachet of cocoa powder into a mug of water from the kettle whilst she carefully tried not to lace it with the ash that hung on her cigarette, I don't mind admitting that tasting O'connell's, laden with real chocolate was...a little bit fucking sexy!...and since Sunday I had been left wanting! Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management however does have a recipe that doesn't even utter the word 'cocoa powder' and instead calls for 1/2 ounce of chocolate. Mmmm - there seems to be something powerfully rebellious about bypassing the kettle, and as I see the victorian recipe swirling away in the pan I also imagine the servants from 'Downtown Abbey' in their PJ's, sitting around the warm arga drinking this sweet treat before retiring to bed. Carrying the cup through to the armchair - I almost feel as though I am carrying something I just dug up from history, 'But it's just a cup of hot chocolate' I hear you shout. But actually it gives me an idea -  I am going to give into my sense of nostalgia and use my spare time recreating food the past - and my blogs will culminate into a 'nostalgic cookbook' - I think I even need a Victorian name?!