It has been awhile since I have had time to write a post.  With my family's busy summer and the new transitions for my children with school, the days have flown past me and now suddenly we are in December.

 

One important event for me was getting my first, and hopefully last, crown.  The hardest part was receiving the injection to numb my entire mouth; the shot was very painful, even with my dentist's  careful ministrations.  When the numbness went away a few hours later, I was left with a curious sensation on the surface of my tongue and alarmingly, the lack of taste.  The sensation died down but did not entirely subside and my taste buds seemed traumatized.  I assumed it would be fine with time and forgot to mention it to my dentist when he went in to numb me again to fit the crown.  This time, when the numbness subsided, I noticed the same curious sensation similar to eating a "hot" candy or eating a jalapeno; a burning that seemed to swell each taste bud and that seemed to move across and under the front area of my tongue.  And at that moment in time, I could not taste anything at all.

 I did and do find this alarming.  Luckily, I am an experienced cook and can add ingredients based on years and years of cooking with ratios. All of my chocolate blends are written down which means that I all I  have to do is follow a recipe, my own; however, during the conching process, I taste the chocolate after 24 hours on a timeline which includes a period of time that I must conduct a taste test as often as every thirty minutes until I feel that the balance of chocolate flavors feel right to me; a process that can take up to three days.  Not being able to taste, in a balanced way,  has stopped me from making chocolate for a few months now. As time has passed, my ability to taste has returned, slowly and with a curious unevenness i.e. for about a month I was deeply aware of sugar.  Any sugar in a food or drink product registered on my taste buds as sickeningly sweet.  I almost could not eat, the sweet flavor was so strong.  I was able to eat bitter chocolate and even then was aware of a sweetness that was almost unbearable and the awareness of sweetness would last for hours.  

Which, of course, leads me to think about flavors in chocolate, the balancing of flavors in chocolate and how important it is to remember that at any given time, a person may experience flavor that disappoints during one taste test and then, taste it again, months or days later and find that they LOVE it.  I can taste again, and for this I am extremely thankful,   and will be getting back to doing what I so enjoy doing, making chocolate, eating chocolate, and sharing chocolate.

May your holidays be filled with a sense of hope, joy and chocolate