Strike While the Mood is Hot*

Honestly, I'm not as tidy as I wish I were. In fact, my initials already spelling M.E.S. is a bit of an omen for how neat I keep things half the time. But every once in a while I actually act upon my desire to have a neater, more organized house, and recently, the creative mood crossed paths with the tidy mood and gave birth to this:

Now, don't get me wrong: it really is just a tube of fabric with ribbons at each end to hold my abundance of plastic bags that my roommate and I seem incapable of throwing away, but this plain little tube is something that we have needed for months. I have been putting off making it, whether from perfectionism, or lack of time, or lack of motivation, or just from the fact that the laundry room door stays closed most of the time, so why should I be concerned that one shelf looks like this:

What you can't see in the above picture is that there was also a pile of bags in the floor and another pile that had fallen on top of the washer. Like I said, we may have a bag problem. 

But I rolled up my sleeves, donned my 1950's housewife kerchief, and went to work, allowing myself to let go of the idea that a tube to hold my trash bags had to somehow be a work of art that I spent hours on. 

And in less than an hour, including the stops I made for music, brownies, hunting for fabric, pulling out my sewing machine and waiting for the iron to heat up, I had successfully turned this: 

Into something useful. 

That's important to me. I followed my creative spirit, rather than letting myself get hampered by the idea of imperfection. 

Which means I'm keeping better track of my New Years Resolutions than I might have thought. 

So, strike while the mood is hot - let your creativity flow into something useful or beautiful or simply fun - and don't let fear hold you back. 

*This statement does not apply to pretty much any emotions of passion, including rage, malice and lust.

Hot, Hot, Hot – Hot Chocolate!

Well, so far, I've already broken a couple of my New Year's Resolutions - one of which was to write at least one blog post per month. Honestly though, I've had this post in mind for at least two months, so that should count for something. Maybe my laziness in writing down my ideas. Still, there's always time to begin again.

Over the Christmas holiday, I went to visit my family in Estonia, a small, quiet country in Northeastern Europe. They've lived there since October, so by the time I got there at the end of December, they were all settled in and ready to show me around.

One of the little places we visited was a Hot Chocolate Restaurant that was down a back alley:

And had this on the back door:

Inside, we all had some of the most decadent hot chocolate we had ever tasted in our lives. Noah got one that was laced with ice-cream.

But this layered beauty of "Vanilla-Sea-Salt-Honey-Cocoa" was my own special treat. I was in awe. Who knew that honey and chocolate could go together? How did it have all of those layers? Was that steamed milk foam and whipped cream I was tasting? If it hadn't been my last day in Estonia, I am positive that I would have paid 3.50€ multiple times just trying to figure out the secrets of this rich, drinkable dream. (This first one was a gift from Mom - or was she just trying to increase my addiction to cocoa?)

Since, however, it was my last day, my pocketbook is happy to announce that I did not squander its contents on European melted chocolate confections, but instead on ample amounts of American possibilities for Stateside reproduction. 

With a little creativity, I began trying to make my own version:

I melted dark chocolate chunks with a little bit of boiling water and some vanilla.

I drizzled a tall glass with honey and sprinkled it with kosher salt.

                          

In went the melted chocolate, followed by a few ounces of steamed milk thanks to my espresso machine.

Finally, I topped it with homemade whipped cream (well, technically, I used half and half...which, yes, you can whip) and sprinkled it with a little cocoa.

Voila! My attempt at Estonian Cocoa.

It wasn't quite as decadent - or quite as hot as it should have been to be a perfect match. Turns out, making a perfect cup of cocoa with milk foam on top takes years of practice. Maybe thousands of times of steaming milk and melting chocolate to really get it perfect.

And that's alright with me - because imperfect cocoa made with a desire to create, experiment and learn is still amazing. 

And learning that imperfect can still be delicious is more amazing still. 

So here's to a new year full of learning and trying and doing and being and failing - and enjoying growing up and making life delicious, even with all its imperfections.