Like Water for Chocolate

During the Summertime, you usually cook less and relax more. One of my favourite hobby is to read. For me, a book is just like enjoying a dish. You bite it, you eat it little by little, discovering the tastes and flavours in your mouth, enjoying the texture of the food, sometimes, surprise by some unexptected spice, and then you swallow it and make it totally part of you, keeping on taking out the energy of the marvellous food.
Read a book is a very special experience for me, a special moment dedicated only to myself!

One of friend, gave me this book, and one day I was looking for something easy and entertaining, I started to read it. It took me less than a week to read it,... that´s true that is not very big or long. But it's the kind of book, you read as you eat a square of dark chocolate, you bite it and then let the bitter and tasteful chocolate to melt in your mouth,.... and once you started you cannot stop,... this Like Water for Chocolate!

Pure entertaining, pure pleasure,... it brought me so much good memories about Mexico, and its unbelievable cuisine, about the woman soul and fights, about the tastes and the magic of the food.

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but some weeks ago, my friend made a housewarming party with a Mexican buffet. I helped to prepare and cook everything, and it was a great joy to share it and eat it with all the guests.

It´s difficult to make your choice in the Mexican cuisine: guacamole, mole, tacos del pastor o de carnitas, chiles en nogales,.... oh my god! my mouth is watering,...

The book is a hymn to the life in all its aspects, the food, and the Mexican ingredients as well as the magic between all of them. I've always seen something magic in the food, and all the more in the Mexican one,... the recipes sounds more like a potion for the soul than a delicatessen for the body.

This bok also reminded me a great artist of the chocolate, José from the chocolatería Ocumare in Sevilla. Some years ago, several years ago, it seems to me very far away, friends from Sevilla, insisted to bring us for a chocolate after lunch. I did not know what expected me there,... this is one of the most incredible place I have ever been,... This is a small café, hidden in a corner's street, quite far away of the touristic places. There is 5 tables, no more. People lines to get there and try one of the chocolate, José does with love, passion and secrecy!

We chose one of the many chocolates on the menu, witout knowing exactly what we will have, even if the waitress explained with a lot of details each specificity of the chocolate, from Ecuador, Colombia, and I could not remember the other exotic places written on the black board.

I was not really enthusiastic to have a hot chocolate at that point, I got really sickened with the thick sweet hot Spanish chocolate,...

Anyway, our cups arrived, and we tried it. What a suprise when the chocolate touch my lips and I noticed it´s cold!!!!! cold!!!! Fantastic idea! but then, I also realized that the chocolate is not thick at all, nor sweetend!

Instead of that, a dark cold liquid goes through my throat, exploding its flavours like fireworks in my mouth,... I´m astonished, opened mouth,....

He decided to have another one, and we add a piece of homemade pastry,.... incredible experience. This young chef, who learned pastry in France, is passionnated with the cocoa pods and the chocolate,... he dedicates his life travelling the world for hte best cocoa, and then in his laboratory, this alchimist is searching for the perfect potion that will release all the flavours of the cocoa, in its pure state,....

If you have the chance to go to Sevilla, do not forget to live this experience,....