Hot Chocolate, Italian-Style
The first time my husband and I took our kids to Italy was in 2004. Our daughter was six and our son had just turned eight. It was a two-week trip to research my first cookbook. I was excited about that. But what I was looking forward to even more was showing my children the place their mother adored so much and tended to go on and on (and on) about; the place where I had spent many endless summers when I was growing up.
Except it was November. And instead of being down at the beach on the coast of Abruzzo, which is where I had spent most of my time as a girl, we were way up on a hill in a small farmhouse we had rented in Umbria, far away from summer or the seashore. There were no other families with kids around. It was a great place to be if you were researching soups and stews, but maybe not such a great place if you were six or eight.I
The hills were cloaked in mist, and a chilly drizzle seemed to be about all the time. Our days consisted of a lot of driving. We would pick a town on the map and head toward it, our ultimate goal being (always) to find a good meal. It usually took much longer than we bargained for to get wherever we were going (in Italy, everything looks much closer on the map). We criss-crossed Umbria and ventured over the border into Tuscany, hitting, in our haphazard way, Arezzo, Assisi, Cortona, Deruta, Gubbio, and other places before eventually heading back to Rome.
When we weren't driving we were walking, which the kids liked because the hill towns with their narrow cobbled streets reminded them of Hogsmeade (or what Hogsmeade might be like if J.K.Rowling were Italian). And when we weren't walking we were eating, which they sort of liked, but let's face it, when you are six and eight eating is just not a priority, no matter how good the food is (unless the food is called gelato).
They are smiling because they are full of hot chocolate.
Still, once they had resigned themselves to the cruel reality that this trip was to be nothing like, say, Disney World (which I’m happy to say I never did take them to), the kids proved to be troupers. Though I might be blocking out certain moments of back-seat bickering and smacking and whining and exasperated scolding.
Let's just say there was a certain amount of bribery involved--in addition to gelato, a stuffed animal here, a soccer ball there, a couple of those plastic tourist slideshow cameras. And hot chocolate. Lots of hot chocolate. Italian cioccolata calda is halfway between a drink and a spoon dessert, very dark and thick and with a bitter edge. Our daughter would drink it hot and our son would wait for it to cool and eat it like warm pudding. It quickly became a daily ritual for us to stop at a bar late in the afternoon after walking around in the chilly mist. My husband and I would toss back espressos and the kids would have their hot chocolate.
We still talk about our first trip to Italy together, and many others that have taken place since then. And sometimes I make Italian-style hot chocolate to go along with the trip down memory lane.
CIOCCOLATA CALDA {Hot Chocolate, Italian-Style}
Makes 2 to 3 servings
Ingredients
1 cup milk (I used skim; whatever you have is fine)
3/4 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 to 3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
Instructions
1. Measure the milk, cream, and cocoa powder into a saucepan and set it over medium heat. Begin whisking to incorporate the ingredients, and reduce the heat to medium-low or low if necessary to prevent it from boiling.
2. When the milk is warm, gently whisk in 2 tablespoons of the sugar. Continue to cook over a gentle flame until the cocoa and sugar are dissolved and the mixture is steaming hot. Add a little more sugar for sweeter hot chocolate.
3. Measure the cornstarch into a small bowl. Spoon a little of the hot chocolate mixture into the bowl and stir it into the cornstarch. Pour this mixture into the hot chocolate and continue to whisk over low heat for another couple of minutes, until thick and smooth but still drinkable.