My name is Katherine Tomlinson and chocolate is my passion. My father was in the army and as a child I lived in Europe where they take chocolate seriously. I was absolutely thrilled when we visited Amsterdam and the hotel continental breakfast included rolls, butter, cheese and tiny slabs of lovely, bittersweet chocolate. When you’ve eaten chocolate for breakfast as a child, there’s no going back.
Although my father’s career took the family all over the place, my roots were southern and only one generation removed from the farm. Both my grandmothers were award-winning cooks and bakers and they passed their secrets on to us.
I lived in a household where all the recipes had a history and a context. We didn’t just eat chocolate cake, it was Emma Sage’s chocolate cake and even though we didn’t know Emma personally, we knew she was our paternal grandmother’s best friend. The Red Velvet cake? That recipe was from Jacquie Gelinas, a recipe shared with my mother when the two women met on an army post in France. Other kids ate packaged snack cakes and cellophane-wrapped cookies, we ate Mrs. Newman’s Whoopie Pies (little chocolate cake disks sandwiched with creamy filling) and home-made chocolate chip cookies.
I have become the keeper of my family’s culinary secrets. I have notebooks and index cards and scribbled directions on lined notebook paper. Sometimes I have to puzzle out the words written in my grandmother’s cramped copperplate or my mother’s hurried scrawl. I will never be able to make pie crust as tender and flaky as my mother’s but I will match my cakes and cookies and brownies against her any day.
Just as my grandmothers and mother passed their treasures on to me, I’d like to share what I know about cooking and chocolate and comfort with you.
Welcome to Chocolate. I hope you’ll enjoy the visit and come back often.
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