Hot chocolate

The first time I had European hot chocolate was in 1996, at Wedel in Warsaw with Ewa and John. This was a place Ewa went to when she was a student at the University of Warsaw. The room was pink, white and sort of run down. I went back there a year ago, in March of 2005, and it was pretty gentrified. The chocolate was the same, thick and dark, even though the place is now owned by some multinational conglomerate and not the Wedel family. It's at ul. Szpitalna 8, and is in my top fifty (as yet unwritten) list of things to do in Warsaw.



So in 1997 I went to Spain and a student told me to go to the Chocolateria San Gines. There are probably better places to go for chocolate than this because it's in Frommer's and Fodor's and god knows what else. There can be a line around the block. The chocolate is served with churros, long, greasy, repellent doughnuts which are dipped in the chocolate. Add a cigarette to the mix and it's all pretty hazardous to your health.



So this hot chocolate is pretty easy to make.

for about 4 servings:
2 cups skim milk or soy milk
1 heaping teaspoon cornstarch
sugar to taste
chocolate chips
1 Tablespoon cocoa
1/2 tsp vanilla
chocolate liqueur

Dissolve the cornstarch in a little water and add to the milk. Whisk until it begins to thicken. Add sugar, a teaspoon at a time. Add some chocolate chips, or semi-sweet baking chocolate. Whisk until dissolved. When it is thickened, add chocolate, vanilla, liqueur to taste. You can add Cointreau or Kahlua, too. Not too much.



I made this for Jordan on Saturday. We came here after the Market and we went over the recipe pretty thoroughly. He had this chocolate for the first time in February, 2005 in Siena, and I forgot to ask Donna for the name of the shop where we had ciocolatte calda and panforte. However, I googled "caffe Siena panforte" and it came up: Nannini. This photo is of Jordan (wearing Federico's leather jacket) and he really liked this hot chocolate.