From Sharon, one of our chocolate demo guests last night: This lovely comment makes my day! And I’ll bet it will make all chocolate lovers’ tongues smile! So: Are You getting yourself a hammer for your kitchen?

Levana, I went to last night’s cooking class: chocolate demo night. Beef stew in black currant chocolate sauce sounded like an unlikely amalgam of main dish and dessert but it was a revelation; the meat was fall-apart tender and deeply infused with flavor, and what flavor! Silky dark cocoa-enriched sauce, intense and rich and you could stand there for an hour trying to figure out what was in it if you hadn’t seen it done (currants and red wine and saffron, oh my!). And the zuppa inglese (trifle): Levana, you are nothing short of an alchemist, the way you transform dairy-free and egg-free into outrageously rich chocolate cream. I could make the entire recipe, go into a quiet room and eat the whole thing myself. (And then nothing else for a week, but it would be worth it.) A memorable evening!