Dark

I’ve never liked sugar as a topping, not even confectioners’ sugar. But I do like candy, especially jimmies! Out here in Los Angeles they call them sprinkles.

"Uh oh, we're out of jimmies. (Or sprinkles, for you weird people.)" ©D. Barstow 2010

I like them especially on ice cream, but on a sugar cookie or other interesting place they’re also good. I prefer all chocolate.

Here‘s a whole forum on jimmies, in Boston, and Boston does know its ice cream. (favorite flavor in Boston? Coffee.)

Someone at school told me that jimmies is actually a ra-cial slur related to the Jim Crow laws (‘course, she was from Jersey)…anyone else heard this?

I hope not! I never heard that before. More comments ideas, below.

Yeah, I’ve heard that they’re sprinkles if they’re multi-colored, and jimmies if they’re chocolate, because it was slang for Jim Crow. And even if it’s not true, enough people around think it’s true, so I call them all sprinkles.

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Yes, we have free choice, but there are consequences. Eating the good things in life is a blessing, but one also wants to fit in nice clothes!

I’ve only read a few food blogs. (Same with cartoons: I don’t like to read other peoples’ cartoons about a topic until I know what I’m going to do – I don’t like to be influenced!)

But one thing they never mention is weight gain. Come on. Eat a lot, (especially sweets or chocolate, and that’s what I’m talking), gain weight.

Well, even when you get fat, there’s still hope. My own philosophy is eat, but then don’t feel guilty, exercise. In moderation, of course.

Caption: Girl on exercycle in gym: Ten more minutes and I can have two desserts tonight.

It comes in hunks. Slabs. It smells up the whole bag you carry it in, and you want to keep sniffing it.

Baking chocolate is when quality really counts. But unless you bake two similar items, at the same time, using different chocolates – and I’m not a scientist – it’s a little hard to compare them.

is this how you cut up baking chocolate?

I can’t remember the details, but I bought a 10 pounder at Trader Joes a couple of years ago and it was okay, not great. Great price, but TJ is always great on price, just mediocre on desserts.

I was given a big bar of baking chocolate at the Western Foodservice Convention one year (unfortunately not this year – I don’t think they even had a booth this year ) and that was one of my favorite freebies that year! I hated to start cutting it up – I felt richer just having it in my cupboard! I didn’t have a blog then, so I can’t remember the name, but I’m pretty sure it began with S. Scharffen Berger? I just don’t remember, but it made extraordinary icings and brownies. Amazon has some rave reviews for their cocoa: Scharffen Berger (Scharffenberger) Natural Cocoa Powder in a cute tin. Next time I’ll take notes.

The movie, Fatal Attraction, is kind of old now, but passion isn’t.

And an ice pick is the only way I know how to cut up baking chocolate. Is there another way? I rarely find chocolate chunk cookies store bought that taste right, but I’m still looking.

Cartoon caption: "Chocolate happens, dear."

I’ve done cartoons on chocolate from the very beginning of my cartoon career, even before chocolate became acceptable, healthy, and girly, instead of some shameful vice I had to hide. (Or was that just my family? )

So I had a nice stash of cartoons on chocolate to show the editor of my proposed book on the subject.  However, once I counted them, there were only about 30 or 40. And I needed 120 cartoons for the book, which is a fat hardback! Even when I included any dessert that had chocolate as an ingredient, not just straight candy, which was always my intention, anyway, still not enough. That meant a cake plate of new cartoons I had to do.

This is one I did under the high pressure-cooker deadline of  a new book, but  it turned to be one of my favorites, in spite of my anxiety! I like the simplicity of the solid black and white, with just enough detail to make it interesting. I love the little plants in the window to get the morning sun! And the cookbooks on the shelf behind her. Plus this was SO much fun, drawing little miniature versions of all these dark delicacies.   Continue reading

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