Montezuma’s Chocolate

Whilst in Costa Rica, we went on a tour of a coffee plantation and farm, to find out about the coffee-making process. They also told us about the sugar-making process, and the chocolate-making process. At the end of the chocolate-making, our guide made a drink which he described as Montezuma’s xocoatl recipe. I thought this would be good to make into ice-cream. Here goes:

250ml cream

400ml milk

4 egg yolks

100g sugar

250g Whittaker’s 72% Dark Ghana chocolate* 

2 cinnamon sticks

Pinch of chilli flakes

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla paste

Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until pale. Heat the milk and cream in a saucepan, and add the remaining ingredients. Stir to melt the chocolate, until almost boiling. Allow it to cool a little, then add a small amount of the chocolate cream to the eggs and sugar, and combine. Add the rest of the chocolate cream mixture, combine thoroughly, and return it to the saucepan. Heat it again, stirring constantly to prevent it catching, until almost boiling. It should be a thick smooth custard at this point. Cool in the fridge overnight, then churn it in your ice-cream maker.

* This, I am sure, is what Montezuma would have used if he'd known about it. You may substitute a local equivalent.

Tom Skelton 2020 Visions

Remember going out? That thing we used to do, where you’d go “out of doors”, and see other people, and maybe have some food and drink too?

We did a “going out” a couple of weeks ago, and I have failed to document what turned out, in fact, to be one of our last “goes out” this year… we also did pub quiz (which we won!) but that’s a weekly thing anyway. Or it was.

When the New Zealand Fringe Festival was still going on, we booked tickets to see Tom Skelton’s show at BATS Theatre. We drove into town early, anticipating the usual five o’clock snarl-up that goes on along Cobham Drive. Nothing. No hold-ups at all. We whistled through, and found ourselves parked and at a loose end in Courtenay Place shortly before five o’clock. What to do? Well, CGR Merchants opens on the dot of five, so we surprised the barman by heading straight there and ordering pre-prandial cocktails – a Jamaican Me Crazy for me, and a Siren’s Song for Nicola. We then walked the short distance to Ortega Fish Shack – a restaurant we haven’t been to for far too long. It’s one of Wellington’s established…er…establishments, and continues to offer excellent seafood in a relaxed, some say quirky, environment.

The show was at 7:30, and we were in the foyer awaiting the opening in plenty of time. We went  up to the top – the Studio – where we looked out onto a set comprising a table and a couple of chairs. Then Tom Skelton himself appeared, and started talking to us about his adventures in life, since being diagnosed in 2010 with a rare genetic disorder that left him with 10% vision in one eye, and none in the other. His show recounts the story of his life, how he got through the various challenges, and what he would have done differently had he been able to see. He’s very, very funny, and does a lot of jokes that a sighted person wouldn’t be able to get away with.

So that’s the show. An hour or so of a blind bloke telling you about his life. If you get a chance to see him, do so, although he’s probably not going to be touring much at the moment.