Chocolate for Christmas

WhereLemonsBlossom’s Chocolate, 2011 Edition

Hello, I’m Walter, a new voice in WhereLemonsBlossom (thanks hon!), and I’ll counterpoint Simona’s art, culture and tradition posts with more prosaic food-and-wine ones.

It’s so like me to play the odd jarring note, both literally and metaphorically. So, after listening to Corelli’s Christmas Concerto (a piece which for many reasons is immensely close to my heart) —Hey, it’s chocolate time!

We apparently live in an age of e-cards, and Facebook friends, and Google+ hangouts, and Skypechats and virtual whatevers. I know at least one married couple who SMS each other when they are in different rooms.

(Well, when I did research on virtual communities back in the ’90s we wanted to bring people closer together. But we meant across countries and continents, not living rooms.)

So, come Christmas, we felt it was time to rediscover being personal: we’d home-make chocolate liqueur for all our friends. Enter Chocolate (yes, we didn’t sweat the name, thank you).

Chocolate bottle label

We started from an old home recipe we liked. Then, as is always the case with recipes, we did our own adjustments. And what we got is our own meditation chocolate liqueur. Meditation, because this day and age beg for a rediscovery of sense, of contact, of perspective; and we feel chocolate is a good excuse to enjoy some quiet time rediscovering the true value of words and things and people, and putting things back into a proper perspective.

Because, as the expiry notice on the label warns, it’s

Best before. Tomorrow is never certain.

And I think this is something that holds for each of us, even those without chocolate.

So, wherever you are reading this from, whatever your creed, whatever your reason (or lack thereof) to call this period a festivity: for one day leave your gadgets and reach out to someone you care. And tell them. Just tell them, without any hope or agenda. And remember who you are; remember who we all are and how precious is our time on this pale blue dot. Dare to be really human again, for a change.

This is our wish to you for Christmas.

(As for New Year’s, I wish you one to quietly be ashamed of, back at the office.)