Hitting Pan is Back!
Bulk chocolate, butter bricks, binge-worthy shows, and more
Hello fellow processors! Welcome to another monthly installment of Things I Used Up and Look Forward to Purchasing Again. Taken together, this collection is giving sweets and treats, hand-written notes, ghosts and the galactics, and plans for soup season. Here’s what I mean…
I BUY THIS CHOCOLATE IN EIGHT-PACKS
It’s been great to watch Tony’s Chocoloney grow from a new, niche brand that was considered “specialty” in 2006 into a chocolate brand that is stocked in NYC bodegas. We are a “little piece nice hunk of chocolate” after dinner family, and running out is dangerous—not even my baking chocolate is safe at night. After sampling many different percentages and flavor profiles, Dark Almond Sea Salt has ascended to the highest bar in our household (as in, bar of chocolate? get it?). This 51% chocolate is appropriately snappy for a darker percentage, but not gritty or brittle; the crunchy almonds are properly salted, with discernible crystals that gradually melt on the tongue; and Tony’s promises exploitation-free sourcing in their supply chain. (There are a lot of labor abuses in the chocolate market, which I wasn’t really aware of until this brand came along.) This bar is a regular addition to my monthly Thrive subscription box, which requires a minimum purchase of eight bars at a time, soooooooo yeah what can I say, they forced my hand!
DINNER IS SPOONED
Before dessert, though, there’s dinner. And as soon as the butt warmers get turned on in the car, my body knows it’s soup season. My son Leo was home from college for Thanksgiving, and post-holiday dinner I offered him the choice of a brothy, gingery turkey soup with noodles, or a spicy turkey pozole.
I know he’s my child because he chose pozole, and I hit the bricks to pick up a bag of dried hominy, aka pozole. Sadly, I struck out at my usual suppliers in Brooklyn, and didn’t have time to get over to Essex Market or Kalustyan’s, so I had to pivot to turkey congee.
That was great, don’t get me wrong, but once the pozole craving has been activated, it must be satisfied. I can’t wait to stock back up and get a tall pot going this weekend.
THE SPACESHIPS ARE COMING
Is there a greater genre than the limited docuseries? Tiger King. Murdaugh Murders. Wild Wild Country. It feels so good to have a show that you can’t get enough of and never want to end. Add Love Has Won to the watchlist. It tells the story of a woman, Amy Carlson, who starts a spiritual group aka cult based around the idea that she is Mother God and her calling is to bring love to planet Earth. Robin Williams and Marilyn Monroe are among Mother God’s spiritual advisers from the galactic realm, and they help her plan the group’s next moves.
In their free time, Mother God’s followers can be found online selling healing candles, colloidal silver, and other tinctures, but only when they aren’t busy tracking spaceships in the cloud formations. Unlike a lot of cult stuff, this isn’t a super dark story, though the show explores the sadness lurking behind Mother God’s cosmic persona. Two great things besides her charisma and kookiness make this show fantastic: lengthy interviews with former members of the cult, who are all captivating and complicated; and an insane amount of video, photographic, and other documented footage (the group was very active online and filmed everything). Wow wow wow my only complaint is that there are only three episodes.
THE NOTEBOOK
Okay fine, technically it’s a note pad. The Rhodia No. 16 is bright orange-yellow, lined, a little smaller than a typical steno pad, contains 80 vellum pages, and is my absolute favorite. I use it for my to-do lists, both professional and personal (tracking Christmas presents and all my content/recipe/writing deadlines currently). I take notes in it when I’m on the phone. It’s where ideas for upcoming panels start taking shape, and it’s where I put any other lightbulb moments, too. I have pages and pages devoted to Cosmo’s high school application process, and I love using the area in the lefthand margin for checking things off. As a procrastinator, I get to cross things out AND check them off when they’re done!
FWIW, I’m a pen and pencil person, too, and currently crushing hard on the Paper Mate InkJoy Gel 0.7. Nothing like a fresh notebook and flowy pen to bring some tactile joy to the everyday carry, right?
LMK if you nibble this chocolate, watch that show, make that soup, or write a new to-do! And if there’s something you used up this month that you think we need to hear about, drop it in the comments!
xoCLM
Picked up a bar of Tony’s Chocoloney almond sea salt after you recommended it and it is delicious!!