Ripe London

The Whole Truth

We love the things we love for what they are.
–Robert Frost

Oh, the lessons.  How mercilessly yet lovingly they come.  Heartbreaking, bittersweet, utterly necessary.

I am tasting the hot chocolate at Paul for the second time in a week. This time I’ve gone for the large.  That’s the kind of impression it made.

The skin has already started to set and pucker.  Tick.  It’s thin enough to drink, thick enough to spoon.  Tick.  It hugs the inside of the cup as it does the back of my throat.  Tick.  It tastes deeply of chocolate with a light touch of je ne sais quoi.  Tick.

As I tip the cup one final time to get the last drop, I wonder what the recipe might be and if I could get it.  Then my heart sinks as I think: copious cream, unscrupulous sugar.  But then it dawns on me:  the sum of this hot chocolate would never be so wonderful were it not for all its parts: the sinful as well as the seductive.

Last week, a new friend shared some wisdom from, believe it or not, Mike Myers.  He said something like this:  true love comes in three stages.  First, there is love without knowledge.  This is when we project our fantasies onto someone we barely know, thus creating that initial giddiness.  Then comes knowledge without love.  Here is where we find out that the screen we projected our fantasies onto is actually a real person, one who in all likelihood has been brought into our lives to mirror back to us what we secretly don’t like about ourselves and vice versa.  Initial attraction is actually nature’s clever trick to get us to this second stage so that we come face to face with ourselves via another, deal with our demons, and grow. 

Sticking it out at this stage is like boiling maple sap into syrup: it bubbles up a lot of uncomfortable stuff, but the rewards are ultimately sweeter than what you started with.  It only happens when we trust in the process and give each other the unconditional acceptance we want for ourselves.  It’s all too easy to bail at this point, but then you miss the third stage and the icing on the cake: love with knowledge.

In other words, ignorance is lust.  It’s acceptance – loving what is – that’s bliss.

Paul is now my pick for high street hot chocolate – warts and all, drop for drop.

High and Dry

Have you ever had a broken rib?  You can’t see what’s wrong on the outside, but oh can you feel it.  You’re hyper aware of even the smallest movements, and deep breaths are difficult.  Sometimes you forget the pain, but all too soon you remember.  You laugh, and then it hurts again.  The only thing that will heal it is time, and lots of it.  No wonder having a broken rib is likened to having a broken heart.  It’s also what the hot chocolate at l’apostrophe is like.

I finally got around to trying what Time Out calls “best of London’s high-street brands” for hot chocolate.  In retrospect, I should have thought about this claim a little more.  Aside from Paul (which is still on my list), I didn't think any high-street standbys did the thick stuff.  Ah, that’s my problem.  Somewhere between my visits to Ladurée and Granada I have come to view thick hot chocolate as the only kind of hot chocolate.

Well, l’apostrophe is definitely thick.  It looks the part.  It sits in the cup with a plop and even has that shiny “skin” settled on top.  All looks good from the outside.  But l’apostrophe’s hot stuff, once it touches your tongue, falls apart like a fractured rib.  The texture is right, but it doesn’t taste chocolaty to me at all.  I kept drinking it – yes, even spooning it at times since it was so thick – but the closer I got to the bottom of the cup, the further I got from hitting the spot.  It was hot.  It was thick.  But chocolate, it wasn’t.

Contrast this with the bowl (yes, bowl) I tried at Hotel Chocolat, a place I’ve long considered too posh and self-conscious.  As you’ll see from the photo, no shiny skin on top, which means it looses points on thickness, though thin it wasn’t.  But this stuff scores on real chocolate flavour.  It was so rich, in fact, that it was almost grainy.  Shame the place feels more like a Perspex chair than a cozy sofa.

Will l’apostrophe recover by adding more chocolate oomph a la Hotel Chocolat?  Only time will tell, of course.   Do I have to settle for texture or flavour?  Nope, especially not when Ladurée still outshines on both criteria and is cheaper than either of these two places. 

l’apostrophe and Hotel Chocolat are on a high street near you.

Foodie Trap

I have an attention span to match my stature, especially when it comes to sports.  Having run the London marathon and competed in Women’s Henley as probably the lightest non-cox in history (albeit due to an entries error), I have now enlisted in British Military Fitness. 

For those of you stateside, this involves running after a fit instructor in fatigues and doing whatever he commands for an hour. It also includes rolling around in the mud and using partners for resistance.  No wonder BMF is one successful business model, and I am one of its newest recruits. 

I was drafted by several converted crewmates, and we often head to Le Pain Quotidien right after the weekend sessions, effectively mitigating training with temptation.  The drill?  A baker’s basket (or two) to smother with the many pots of spreadable stuff on the long communal table of this Belgian chain.

One of my favourite BMF exercises entails running in two files while the instructor yells out various imaginary obstacles.  Herewith are the commands and their dangerous caloric counterparts I’m finding impossible to dodge.

Tripwire!  As you’re running you bring your knees up high.  If only it was this easy to avoid the Praline jar, a golden concoction that spreads like warm chocolate chip cookie dough.

Landmine!  For this one you jump to the side.  Goodness knows how quickly the Dark Chocolate spread winds up on either side of your body.  The low dairy content gives me a false sense of security. I think this one might be my favourite.

Grenade!  Down on the ground, flat on your stomach.  Which is not the same as flat stomach, which is definitely not the case after the Chocolate Hazelnut aka Nutella. 

Don’t think I haven’t figured out that spreading the Praline and Dark Chocolate together camouflage-style would rightly earn me a “get down and give me 20.”

And the problem is?

Le Pain Quotidien is all over London, notably an easy cycle from our training ground.

Bar One

My friend Andrea often goes to a bar on her own for a glass of wine.  I’ve always thought this was brave.  I go to movies on my own, live on my own, moved to a different country on my own, have plenty of gelato on my own; but sitting in a bar alone always seemed weird and slightly scary.  Since I don’t drink very much, bars to me are a place to meet.  Bars are for socialising, right?  They are certainly not for reading, as I discovered. 

I only went because it was too loud in Caffè Nero and too crowded in Starbucks.  It was me and my book, and we had nowhere to go.  I nearly gave up and went home just as I was crossing Abingdon Road.  And then I remembered: my favourite bar is in Abingdon Road.  This was quickly followed by another thought: I’ve never been there on my own.  And then another: wine would actually be much better right now than the peppermint tea I was about to have.

So I made my brave move.  I sat at the bar and had them pour me a glass of Spanish Rosé.  It was a large – The Abingdon only serves it this way.  I felt the cool warmth of it under my tongue and settled into my book.  I was starting to feel quite proud of myself.  But by the time I got through half the glass, the words in my book looked like little squiggles I had to keep looking at.  Over and over again.  Ohmygoodness.  I was drunk.  And on my own.  This was a first. 

Books and booze don’t mix, at least not when you’re a featherweight like me. Although it was fun, I’ll admit it.

The Abingdon is at 54 Abingdon Road, W8 6AP.  Sticky toffee pudding would have helped.