Redhorse cafe

[wardancer]

Do you use Belgian chocolat, like Cote D'or or Callebout or do you stick to American chocolate?

I like both !

[OLChemist]

Do you use Belgian chocolat, like Cote D'or or Callebout or do you stick to American chocolate?

All cacao is a Native American crop, lol. But, I know what you mean. This particular recipe requires cocoa powder. I use a dutched variety for this recipe -- the relative acidity of natural and dutched matters not in a custard like in chess pie.

For fudge and baking I prefer a chocolate with less cocoa butter. Now for coating, I'll mess with the higher coca butter and the tempering it requires. But for fudge or cake, it just need to be a good grade. We don't get a lot of imported baking chocolates in my area. The top grades tend to be Ghirardelli and Guittard which are American companies.

Now for eating, I'm an equal opportunity eater. Cote d'Or is nice. I like the dark. It is a lot lower in cocoa than a lot of darks, but has smooth but intense flavor. It does't have the strong bitter notes that some dark has.

The Texas climate is hard on chocolate. Outside of major urban areas, you generally encounter products which ship well. The European brands frequently have higher cocoa butter content and thus lower melting points. I love LU Petite Ecolier biscuit, but in the summer they are almost always melted together by the time they get to the store shelves.

[Broken Arrow]

Now, I want to make a chocolate chess pie. No buttermilk, just chocolately goodness.

LOL, that is an attack on hip and belly and hard to resist.

[subeeds]

Survived the icy drive home last week. Spent the day listening to limbs and trees break from the ice. That was a first for me. I've heard those things in hurricanes and tropical storms but never from ice. We had a warm week and now it's cold again for another week or 10 days. Happily not quite as cold as last time.

I'm training a new person at work. Time consuming and it throws me off my routine. LOL!

[Broken Arrow]

Spent the day listening to limbs and trees break from the ice.

Good News, you are back.

It must be very cold that this happens. I can't remember ever to have that happen where I been, not even at Stetten am kalten Markt. (Stetten at the cold market, colloquial known as little Siberia)

[wardancer]

Survived the icy drive home last week. Spent the day listening to limbs and trees break from the ice. That was a first for me. I've heard those things in hurricanes and tropical storms but never from ice. We had a warm week and now it's cold again for another week or 10 days. Happily not quite as cold as last time.

I'm training a new person at work. Time consuming and it throws me off my routine. LOL!

About20 years ago or so(I don't remember the year) We had a horrible ice storm ! When looking at the trees about an hour into the freezing rain all the branches , even the tiny ones , had at least an inch of ice on them ! Night fell and by morning the limbs were breaking everywhere. I had a really nice silver maple tree right out in the yard and when it was done I had a 10 foot tall stump that used to be a beautiful tree. We lost about 15 trees completely and all the rest are finally looking good again. Sounded like cannon shots when those limbs shear off ! Scary !
We got about an inch of snow ! First time in a few years , of any measurable snow. We've had a couple of dustings the last few years but nothing noteworthy !
Not bad out today ! In the 20s and supposed to get up to the mid 30s today , tomorrows not bad , but then the bottoms gonna fall out again and it's gonna be below 0 again for a few days. It's gonna suck big time !
Coffee and I'm outa here ! LOL

[Broken Arrow]

, Coffee please. You are only some minutes late for evening coffee.

[Chalako]

The Texas climate is hard on chocolate. Outside of major urban areas, you generally encounter products which ship well. The European brands frequently have higher cocoa butter content and thus lower melting points. I love LU Petite Ecolier biscuit, but in the summer they are almost always melted together by the time they get to the store shelves.

Yeah, it's hot in Texas.Don't they use cooling truck's for transport?

[OLChemist]

Probably. But, at the store they have to handle the incoming boxes properly. I've seen crackers and cookies left on the loading dock for a short time, while pallets of perishables are hustled into the store.

A lot of fine chocolates are formulated to have melting points around body temperature. In the summer, it doesn't take too many minutes of exposure to un-airconditioned spaces or sunlight streaming in windows to soften the chocolate and stick things together.

Then there is the drive home, LOL.

[Chalako]

Then there is the drive home, LOL.

I understand you are from Texas.Do you live in a reservation or outside?

I have a book with all the Indian reservations and there are only three in Texas.The "Alabama-Coushatta Reservaton", the "Texas Kickapoo Reservation" and the " Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo Reservation".

The Comanches used to live in Texas but i can't find a single Comanche Reservation. Not in Texas or anywhere else.

[OLChemist]

My people are from South Dakota not Texas. I'm the third generation to live away from home.

Just as a point of general information: Close to 3/4 of all Native people, in the US, live off reservation. It's been over 50% since the 1960's. Texas has 3rd largest Native population in the US, after California and Oklahoma.

[OLChemist]

Hot tea with tons of lemon and a touch of sugar, please. I'm freezing. It's 20F outside and in this kind of cold, this old house just doesn't get warm.

[wardancer]

Lot's of HOT coffee. Chores this morning were an hour out in the cold ! -4 with a wind chill (real feel) of -15 ! Brrrrr.....

[OLChemist]

Lot's of HOT coffee. Chores this morning were an hour out in the cold ! -4 with a wind chill (real feel) of -15 ! Brrrrr.....

Keep all your bits covered out there. Frostbite is not fun.

We're not out of the teens yet. I've got several taps running slightly at my house. I get paranoid when I'm at work and have the water running. I keep visualizing a blocked drain and a flood.

In DFW, we dodged a bullet. The entire holiday weekend the media has been banging the death by ice drums. TXDOT even pretreated the interstates over here on Sat, leaving us to drive in the fog of salt thrown up by Stock Show traffic. But, the predicted ice-pocolypse moved about 40-50 miles east-southeast. Canton, Corsicana, Wills Point got the brunt. We seem to have only gotten the a patch or two of ice. Doesn't look like they're even having to play bumper cars down the High 5. (For our friends across the pond, the High 5 is a 12 story high, stack interchange north of downtown Dallas. In ice or snow it is a ski jump for cars. We like to do this, DFW has 10 interchanges that are 81ft or higher. If you're afraid of heights, driving in TX is out. We have a 230 ft bridge in Beaumont, that makes you feel like you're in steep climb in a jet.)

My cousin's getting clobbered with freezing rain down on the coast. She's south of Houston. Houston must be grim with freezing rain and 29F. I see they've already got the elevated sections of I-45 from downtown to loop 610 closed. My grad school alma mater is closed. It must be a special flavor of ugly down there. They are even less equipped to deal than we are.

[Broken Arrow]

You may take cover here. About 4 °C, rain, lightning and thunder today.

Lots of hot coffee , tea if you take what we have, you get it.

You are having real winter.

Afterthought: Keep yourself warm, especially fingers, toes and nose. I had half frozen toes about 40 years ago and when it gets as it is today, the toes send a reminder of that still today.