With chocolate, as in life, bittersweet describes that which is the sweetest. It’s kiss me, no don’t! Yes, definately do! But wait. An element of unknown, anticipated surprise – just enough to satisfy with a component of restraint. The mousse you saps, the mousse.

For the most part, I don’t have too much of a sweet tooth. It’s more like a fang that grows sharp under a full moon and sends me foaming into the night barefoot through the canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains. So yesterday, I had an episode and awoke with branches still in my hair and pockets full of leaves, mascarpone, and organic dark chocolate.

In my morning haze, led by the cocobean puppetmaster, I began melting chocolate and whipping cream. As the fog lifted, the morning sun burned off the evening’s mist revealing a chocolate mouse that was meant to be. The refracted light from the crystal glass was like the careless whisper of a good friend job well done. A craving, cured. Ms. Domestrix, this ones for you:

Melt chocolate, stir and set aside to cool. Whip cream to the consistency of whipped cream. Make sure it’s good and whipped. Add the irish cream and whip together. In a seperate bowl, beat the mascarpone until smooth, then blend into the irish cream and cream mixture. While the mixer is on medium to high, slowly pour in the cooled chocolate until blended.

Spoon into some pretty stemmed glasses and add chocolate shavings for dramatic effect. Serve right away or refrigerate, either way you will be quite pleased, I just know it. For me, the colder the better.

{tags bittersweet chocolate mousse recipe}

I haven’t been the blogger I know I can be lately, and to my dwindling readers please accept my apologies for I have been working alot. Allow me to expand: officially starting today at 5P codeneme Project Big Bang! begins, which for editorial purposes I’ll call B! from this point forward.

Allow me to elaborate further, B! is where we at company X migrate all our customer data to a new platform within 72 hours. Thats 72hrs of scheduled work with an unknown amount of subsiquent fallout. Despite exhaustive test environments, dry runs, diagrams, conference calls, powerpoint presentations, and psychotherapy. Pretty much everyone in operations is working or on call untill the end of next week. Compile that with company Y we just purchased and absorbed into our infrastructure – baby I’m tired and I don’t know what time it is.

We here at passionatenonchalance will get back to our normally scheduled ramblings programming before you know it. All the recipes and small furry animals that are vying for blogspace will be released into the digital wilderness in a flash. I’m trying to convince my hamster to start an advice collumn for other troubled hamsters, but I think he’s more interested in ultimate fighting these days. POW!

{tags bum bum bumblebee}

We just got back from a wine tasting and food eating trip to Santa Barbara. Notable events include my finally having tried fois gras and Chris forcing me to eat a yellow raisin* gastrique. There was also the requisite death march shopping excursion, minibar-demolition, and fist-fights for the camera. All the usual suspects, but nothing was as notable as dinner on Saturday night.

We had reservations at a place called Epiphany; we walked by it post-deathmarch and peeked in for the once-over. Looked nice, but what’s this a few doors down – Bouchon? Wait, as in Thomas Keller Bouchon? No way. Lets just see if they have anything available. They do, right now you say? The patio is fine. We were hungry, thirsty, and Bouchon is the closest we’ll ever get to the French Laundry this millenium. We’ll take it. We get a nice secluded table for two, a great bottle of wine and nibble on some of the best baquette I’ve had. It was pretty much nibble nibble sip sip for an unknown length of time until I heard Chris’s voice drifting through into my bliss, something about Paula Abdul just walked in. I sigh, mmm this wine is SO good, is the vineyard nearby? Oh, appointment only? Scuuuuuze me. And this BREAD. Can you please bring us more?

Enter Miss Abdul into my periphery as my brain registered what my husband just said. Yup definately her, with a very young boy toy date. The maitrede tells her she can have whichever table she likes and she does a beeline for us, the bitch wants OUR table?! Oh HELL to the no! < -- Then I went from zero to Whitney in one hot nanosecond, kicked off my heals and we had this crazyass skank-ho fight right there in Bouchon. Jusk kidding, she plopped down at the table next to us.

She wasn't at all the 'three kinds of crazy' like she acts on Idol, as Chris put it. She was a well-behaved most pleasant dinner date. She asked me nicely to please pass the butter and wouldn't let me pay the bill either. Charming. It was all Simon this and Simon that though for a while which was sort of rude but whatever. And hey, I'd be mad too if I had to show up at 4pm for an 8pm shift to sit there for hours between "its's just not for me DAWG" and "honestly it was like a bad cabaret act, precocious and horrible" all night.

Sadly, no pictures of the food or the abdul - despite my urges. She was practically staring me in the face and it would have been totally obnoxious with the flash. I just didn't have it in me to destroy the nice dinner vibe we all had going on.

*I don't eat raisins, I haven't for years and could argue I've eaten only one in all my years on earth, and it landed me in a hospital subdued by a straight-jacket and strapped to a guerney. The gastrique doesn't count, btw, because it was just a sauce somehow flavored with raisins and contained no debris or remnants thereof.

{tags santa barbara paula abdul bouchon}

Three years ago Chris and I got engaged on 01/02/03 and married on 04/05. Today is our anniversary and at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00am this morning, the time and date was 01:02:03 04/05/06. I’m totally playing lotto later.

Today, his voice still reduces me raw materials. His hugs and kisses remain euphoric and the most adoring gestures I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t think it was possible to love him more than the day we were married, but as I type this through teary eyes, I do. More and more every day. I am so grateful and completely his forever.

{tags xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo}

After Max and Noosh provided the necessary grief counseling required to welcome another pocket sized pet into the family, enter the hamster amsterrr aammsterrr: Francisco*. It was his unbridled enthusiasm for EVERYTHING that first struck me, but it was most definatley his hairdo that stuck me. Notice the bed-head displayed above, it’s perpetual and toe-tinglingly charming.

*After his dangerous and maddeningly honorable namesake Francisco D’Anconia. Sorry for all the instant reader alienating flashy objectivist references, I’m just feeling all baaad because I read a 1,200 page book. It took me four months so I’m not that tough, but still.

{tags siberian dwarf hamsters francisco}

Okay here’s the thing, the room I work in is positioned in the center of the two main hallways that connect into a loop around the entire floor I work on. In order to get to the elevators, break room, conference rooms, etc. no matter where you sit – you have to ORBIT THE ENTIRE PERIPHERY of the floor to reach your destination.

UNLESS we here in this room, this sacred portal, that links the two sides together – grant you a pass. Legend has it that way before my time, people were strictly banned from crossing onto the other side via our gateway. I’m told, this is to prevent pesky sales and support staff from walking through all day interrupting our delicate concentration.

But I, with my ninja-like focusing powers, seriously don’t mind. What does bother me though, is when people intent on cutting through do this whole tiptoe song and dance asking for permission to walk through suck-up thing. Its just uncomfortable, what am I going to say? NO? Uh, I don’t care, just walk on through and lets not discuss it okay? I don’t have anything to say about it except:

• YES, it must totally suck to have to run an 8 minute mile just for a soda.

• And NO, I don’t mind one bit if you walk through here.

I wouldn’t even know you were walking behind my desk if not for the conversation thats initiated every time the question of passage arises. Chin up, one foot in front of the next, ready, set, GO. I have totally run out of things to say to you people on the subject. You’re all interesting enough, there’s a whole wide world of subject matter out there that doesn’t include the anatomy of walking through a room. If you must – lets talk, I’ve got a big mouth and an opinion about pretty much everything! Or not, either way is cool with me. So hark!, I hereby declare the ‘Gateway To The Other Side’ OPEN! OPEN! OPEN! Just like Mervyns. Thanks for your cooperation.

{tags the office rules of engagement}