As I was getting increasingly sick, my body decided that what it wanted most in the world was chocolate bread. So, last week, on a day where I had debilitating headaches, but not “OMG, I want to die from Covid if it means relief from this” headaches, I started the dough for chocolate bread from Clotilde Dusoulier’s book Tasting Paris: 100 Recipes to Eat Like a Local: A Cookbook.
This book has a bunch of amazing recipes in it, many of which I’m desperate to make, however, I was (pre-illness) stymied, as many of the primary ingredients for the recipes, like chickpeas, are presently missing from the grocery stores. Apparently Chris’s amazing mother, Lucia, sent us some chickpeas, but I haven’t really been downstairs to assess the grocery situation, as I’ve been in isolation for the past few days, due to high fever.
I found a single, lone bag of dried chickpeas in the store right before I went down for the count, so at least we have those.
ANYWAY, I made the chocolate bread. I don’t know what page the recipe is on, because the book is downstairs, which is far out of my reach, but it’s in there, towards the beginning.
The recipe was remarkably clear, I think. I can’t really remember. I do know that the finished product was amazing, and also, I remember thinking as I was making it that it was my re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic moment, as I was clearly going down.
Anyway, the next day my head was in the “please let me die now” phase of aching, so Chris ended up shaping the batards for me, and then I proceeded to overcook two of the three loafs, but whatever, they were still delicious.
Here are the final loaves. Clearly Chris wasn’t feeling great either, as they were supposed to be equally sized, but he did his best.
Clothilde (best name, ever, btw), said in the cookbook to wait until the loaves had cooled completely before eating them, as they’d be “gummy and underwhelming” (WHY this phrase is lodged in my fever brain memory, I’ll never know, but it stuck), but I didn’t wait and ate it anyway.
Anyway. Once I get sprung from this joint and regain any energy whatsoever, I will go back to making food, but for now, I am stuck in my cell, with two devoted doggos who refuse to leave my side, and Chris, who is less badly affected by this stupid virus, is left to cook, clean, and bring me food, all while maintaining a proper six foot distance from my dumb plague face.
Cooking the Books 