Tangential Tuesday - Conscious Cocoa

It's not nice to enjoy yourself at the expense of others, at least that's what my Sunday School teacher always said. So if you knew that your morning cup of coffee was making certain green-logo'ed coffee companies rich while their coffee bean farmers, toiling in the fields, didn't have enough earnings to feed their families... how would you feel? I'm sure the morning java would turn from an innocent and routine pleasure into a morning cup of guilt.

That's what happens when we begin to learn where our food really comes from. It's a double-edged sword, knowing so much about how our choices affect people all over the world. I can no longer grocery shop in complete peace, as my every purchase is now plagued with a thousand questions - could I possibly buy this with less packaging, from bulk? Where was this apple grown? New Zealand? How much CO2 did that ship emit making it's way through the Pacific? Is that chocolate grown at the expense of rainforest land? Sigh. The more I know, the more my shopping companions begin to notice my hesitation in the dairy aisle, along with my raised eyebrows in the cereal aisle, and then my forlorn looks over the bananas and kumquats. I never thought that the delectable things I put in my mouth would somehow qualify as instruments of oppression. Sheesh.

But then, I go to the farmer's market. (Almost) no plastic. Everything bright and raw and sitting before the people who grow the spinach and feed the chickens bugs and grass. This food grows within 25-40 miles of where I stand, and is sustainably fished from boats that refuse to deplete fish populations and throw wide nets that annihilate anything in its way. This place feels right, and I know others can feel it too. Everybody loves the farmer's market in the summer. There are no ethical qualms about packaging, no bananas from Ecuador where workers are paid barely enough to live.

At these markets, of course you won't find olive oil, tea... and usually you won't find coffee or cocoa either, except now. This time, at the market I saw a small card table set up near the entrance, a tiny table with a few bags of whole bean coffee, and next to them

several silver packages of cocoa powder. The bags said Fair Trade and Organic, and there was a short, tanned, rough-skinned man standing there. He had on a similarly worn straw hat and light-colored, linen clothes. He was from Costa Rica, and with excellent English he was explaining to someone how Alianza and Sol Colibri was bringing farmers out of poverty.

He was so passionate about his coffee and cocoa, he was stumbling over his words, trying to get them out fast enough so that his customers wouldn't lose attention. He was excited, trying to explain how this Fair Trade Organic Co-op was already selling its cocoa to local Theo Chocolate, but trying to get its products into more local stores. He smiled, and his warm, genuine energy flowed through his gesticulating hands, as he exalted his cause, and told how much more money these farmers could fetch for their products once they left the country. He sold me an entire pound of this cocoa for five dollars. I have never seen cocoa of this quality go for less than sixteen per pound at any other market. Incredible. And I know that these five dollars will go directly to these farmers, and it is more than they could ever make by selling it to some other international entity that doesn't support Fair Trade practices.

Fair Trade guarantees that a farmer gets a fair price for his or her product, enough to make it profitable to continue the business. Seems simple, right? It's amazing that expensive, coveted products that are sold for big dollars here in the US (such as coffee and cocoa) are the same products that run farmers into extreme poverty in Latin America. Cooperatives in Costa Rica, such as Alianza which is Sol Colibri's umbrella organization, benefit from banding together their small farmers into an entity which can do business with larger organizations that support Fair Trade Organic practices.

As I made my homemade chocolate mocha ice cream today, it felt great to use this cocoa. No guilt here, folks (except for the guilt that ice cream normally gives me... but I was making it for Mark, I swear!) This cocoa was amazing, and made an awesome dessert (I stole a few bites, of course.) I thought about the gentleman who sold it to me, with all of his smiling and gusto, his excitement about doing something for his people. Here was a man who knew he had something beautiful, and he wanted to share it with me. Next time I'll try the coffee, which I'm sure will be equally good.

If you're at your Seattle market this week, look for the guy in the floppy straw hat. Buy his cocoa, buy his story, and please pass it on.

Sol Colibri Chocolate Mocha Ice Cream

1 cup organic milk

2 cups organic cream

1/2 cup Sol Colibri cocoa powder

1/4 cup Pero coffee substitute, soluble coffee powder, or brewed coffee

3/4 cup Evaporated cane juice (may sub regular sugar, or agave nectar)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, mix all ingredients and whisk until sugar is dissolved and mixture is completely homogenous and smooth. Chill the mixture completely, and then make ice cream according to ice cream maker's instructions.

My Cookie's Better

These days, anything can become famous. If you want to pass around a funny video of your kid on YouTube drugged up and babbling after his dentist appointment in a manner of hilarity approximating your putting a little herb into his brownies, it can become famous. If you want to create an internet community, linking your friends with each other and then their friends with each other until you prove beyond a reasonable doubt the Kevin Bacon phenomenon, you can become famous. If you decide to use your first karmic lifetime as the blond, snotty daughter of a hotel investment baron and flash your cookie to the cameras upon exiting your limo, well… you get the picture. Hey, I want my cookie to become famous too. However, before I go showing it off to you shamelessly, I must express to you the utter superiority of the cookie in question.

First, a bit of history. My cookie was actually discovered quite by accident. You see, I was fooling around in the kitchen one afternoon, feeling experimental and even a little shy with having to tinker with someone else’s cookie. I’m usually not so shy about these things (normally I go at it with wild abandon), but this cookie was so delicate and, may I say, tasty to begin with that I hesitated to even begin flirting with that seductive, addictive thing. But I had to. There was no way around it. I needed a cookie, and I needed one right away. I was out of my usual cookie-making supplies and I had to do something. Fast. I knew I had to win that cookie over, romance it even, with chocolate.

But no chocolate bars? No hot coconut oil either? Would this rendezvous end in calamity?

The cookie would eventually see it my way.

Yes, the cookie yielded, and became mine. Cocoa powder was thrown into the air, olive oil slicked the kitchen tiles as the intense heat poured from the oven, steaming the windows and increasing my passion. I stirred and sifted and poured molasses all over. I rolled and sweated and used all the sugar in the house. The cookie looked pleased, covered in chocolate, hot and chewy. Yes! Yes! Yes! My cookie is the one! My cookie must be shown to the world, displayed in all its gooey sweet goodness!

My cookie is special. My cookie should be famous. If the requirement to be famous these days means you gotta show a little cookie, then that’s just what I’ll do.

The Money Shot

Chocolate Passion Cookies

Recipe by Chrissy and Mark

And now a word from Mark, my baker in crime. “I love chocolate chip cookies, so what could bring out the spontaneity, the passion, the indulgence, and a unique turn on the established, supreme reign of the traditional chocolate chip cookie? Bring on the chocolate-chocolate chip cookie. But what about a nod to fudge? What about dark chocolate? What about molten-lava cake? This cookie combines all three. It’s about richness, it’s about the moist draw of something…. I needed a cookie that fulfilled a special place—in my tummy—and fulfilled a special role in my heart.

Behold… the modified recipe!

I propose two of the most interesting qualities of this cookie: The molasses that gives it the edge of a very slight fudgy-ness, and the final step: gingerly pressing 3-5 chocolate chips into the tops of the cookies as they are cooling. Yay to spontaneity! And in that spontaneity, may you all find your inspiration to create something—anything—and may it be something new.

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup white flour (spelt or all-purpose)

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup finely shredded unsweetened coconut

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 cup butter, olive oil OR coconut butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 heaping tablespoons of molasses

1/2 cup maple syrup (the real stuff)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate chips (see below for variable quantity)

Preheat oven to 350, combine flours, coconut, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Melt butter in small pan, combine with sugars, maple syrup, molasses and vanilla. Beat well with large whisk or electric beater. The mixture should be creamy & integrated.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry. Bake 10 - 12 minutes. No more, no less. The cookies should almost seem underdone, but as they cool they will remain chewy and perfect!
After coming out of the oven carefully and gingerly push approximately 5 chocolate chips into each cookie (depending on size of cookie: if smaller cookies, go with 3, or simply add or subtract to your heart's delight).
Let chocolate melt into cookies, and let cool completely.