This is one healthy looking piece of chocolate. Then again, everything from The Nourished Kitchen tends to have a health focus. Chocolate (85% cocoa content), cinnamon, chili powder, and coconut milk — this is a meal in itself. Who says that healthy doesn’t taste good?
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“Mayan chocolate, bitter and sexy, with its resonant flavors of cinnamon and chili always reminds me not of Mexico, but of Amsterdam. It was in that cold and wet city that my husband and I tied the knot to the bells of the Oude Kerk six years ago. We’re not much for fanfare, we two. And while we’d planned the trip for months, it was only in the three days before we left that we decided to make the Valentine’s getaway a honeymoon. A trip to the county clerk for our $10 marriage license, $165 on eBay for our wedding rings, and we were set. No satin dresses, no expensive flowers, no wedding invitations. Just us, in love. We were young and poor and passionate (and, I imagine, you could say that not much has changed since then). We rented an apartment in de Wallen – one of the city’s oldest sections in which stunning architecture and history combine with Amsterdam’s most well-known indulgences: coffee shops and the red light district.
After a few days in the city, visiting the Stedelijk and spending hours walking from canal to canal, we met my brother-in-law at Central Station. He rode the train in from Italy where he’d spent a few years hopping from farm to farm. We surprised him with the news and signed our papers while he dished out a bowl full of risotto with winter vegetables – our reception dinner, if you will, combined with a cheap bottle of viognier. Intimate, quiet and simple. My brother-in-law stepped out of the apartment only to return a short time later with a box of truffles, among them Mayan chocolate. And, perfectly, our only wedding gift.
