Quietly Continuing

December 26, 2015

Chocolate in Context turned ten years old in 2015. Things are different. These days, people are speaking very loudly about the equivocal ethos of the Mast Brothers in Brooklyn. There's something fitting, then, that the shift from my age-old blogger site to a version that is finally and firmly planted here at chocolateincontext.com is marked by a move away from that same topic to a quieter conversation about a different band of brothers, the Maloneys, who are churning away making Sol Cacao in Harlem. Batch #1 of their 72% Trinidad bar, an homage to their own country of origin, is a nice surprise, both fruity and raisiny, either a little but over-roasted or a little bit intentionally smoky.

This is the new Chocolate in Context, tasting, thinking, pausing, quietly continuing.

Places to return

Featured

October 30, 2015

Landing Page

October 30, 2015

I would like to eradicate anger and doubt. Of course, without anger and doubt, there might be no essays. That might be why I feel so ambivalent about my presence here at something called the NonfictioNow conference in Flagstaff, Arizona, an exploration of the essay form by over a hundred writers from the margins to the mid-list. That statement, I know, if not only doubtful but angry, intended to insult and insulate. And ambivalence is impossible to eradicate though so many of us in the American middle class make it our business to try. So let me so say the same thing, honestly, in a different way, before I make my escape: there is so much incredible stuff to read here, all the more so because most of it is probably completely unknown to you. (These pronouns--you, I we, they--are necessarily ambiguous, shifting, dependent upon context.)

October 30, 2015