Week 29: Maine, Chocolate and a Mystery
A few months before my mom died, she sent Kara a gift—an author signed book titled Miss Rumphius—to celebrate her 5th birthday.
As I’ve mentioned before, my mother valued words, reading, and books above most things, therefore most gifts given to my kids were books. At that time, she was living in subsidized housing in New Hampshire and had limited financial resources. I don’t know the story behind getting the author’s signature, but as you can see in the photo she made the effort to get this $5 paperback personalized for Kara.
With her obesity and mobility issues, I can’t imagine it was an easy feat to get to a library or bookstore to obtain the signature. Of course, at 5-years-old Kara didn’t understand that display of generosity; however, she did love the story, which was about an exotic woman who lived a life of adventure and spent her later years spreading lupine seeds throughout the coastal islands of Maine.
Maybe my mother connected with this book because she loved Maine so much; maybe it was the idea of traveling the globe; or maybe she simply enjoyed the illustrations. Whatever the reason, I’m pretty sure she didn’t grasp the impact that this book would have in the near future.
Here’s where the magic, mystery, or insert word here that means a crazy-ass story that you may or may not believe comes in…
When Kara received the book in April 1993, we were living in a little ranch house in Vancouver, Washington where I’d planted a small perennial flower garden a couple of years prior. There were hydrangea, echinacea, hostas, and a few more easy-to-maintain (hey, I had 4 kids) blooming plants.
While weeding in the spring of 1994, a year after Kara received the book (and about a year after mother’s death), I noticed a few unfamiliar plants coming up through the soil. The pointed leaves and fan formation resembled marijuana, which I guarantee I never planted, so I suspected they weren’t weeds (no pun intended) and left them alone, mostly out of curiosity to see what they would become. Weeks passed and right on time for seasonal growth stood three tall stalks filled with vibrant, round purse-shaped blooms. They looked familiar but I couldn’t identify them, so I used my ever-handy Sunset Garden book (because we didn’t have the Internet then) and identified them as lupines in lavender, pink, and blue shades. A switch flipped in my head and I recalled the book Kara had been given a year before, and then I completely freaked out.
I never planted these flowers! Nor, had I heard of them before my mom gave Kara that book. WTF?
If you’ve ever seen a ghost or had any kind of creepy spiritual experience, you’ll understand the unnerving blend of excitement and fear that I felt. It was that creepy connection to the other side, followed by an overwhelming sense of peace in knowing that my mom was reaching out to tell me I could experience a relationship with her NOW. It was as if she was watching over us and loved us in a way that she was unable to while she was alive. We stayed in that house for a few years and the lupines returned and spread for years to come.
Since my return to the East Coast, I’ve grown—like my mother—to absolutely adore Maine with its rocky dynamic shoreline, fragrant woods, wildlife, and New England charm. Now, when I visit my favorite coastal towns and islands, I truly feel my mother’s presence each time I paddle a kayak on the bay, prepare a seafood dinner, watch the tide roll in and out, and, yes, when I fill a vase with lupines. I know she’s there showing me what she loved so deeply about this special place.
Original Recipe
Maine Chocolate Pudding
Maine chocolate pudding, which is similar to a chocolate lava cake, was hands-down my favorite dessert as a kid! I mean, who wouldn’t love warm melted chocolatey goodness?
For my recipe revamp, I couldn’t really make the pudding healthy, because it is after all loaded with sugar, but I thought I’d see if how it would work to go vegan, and for fun I converted it to a mocha dessert with coffee. The swaps were easy to do, I replaced the white sugar with organic sugar (white sugar is not vegan), the cow’s milk with almond milk, and the butter with coconut oil.
The Results:
This is still a warm chocolate delicious dessert and if you’ve never tasted the original, you’d be fine. In fact, one of my tasters, after I disclosed it was vegan, responded, “Shit, I don’t care what this is, it’s really, really good!” But, I noticed the vegan version had less pudding and it wasn’t quite as thick. Because this recipe relies on baking science to create cake and pudding, I hesitated to reduce the sugar content; but it is really too sweet for my adult taste buds. I’d like to try to figure out a way to give it a stronger dark chocolate flavor with less sugar. But again, if you want to delicious vegan dessert to serve with vegan vanilla ice cream, this is a great way to go!
Mocha Maine Chocolate Pudding Recipe
Ingredients:
¾ C organic sugar
1 C flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 oz square unsweetened chocolate, melted
2 Tbsp. coconut oil
½ C almond milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
Topping:
1/2 C coconut palm sugar
2/3 C organic sugar
4 Tbsp. cocoa
1 C cold coffee
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Sift sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt together. Melt the chocolate square with the coconut oil. Add melted chocolate and coconut oil to the sifted dry mixture. Add milk and vanilla, and stir completely.
Pour into a buttered 9 x 9 glass or ceramic baking dish.
In a separate bowl, combine topping ingredients. Evenly scatter mixture over the top of the batter, but do not mix.
Pour the cold coffee over the entire pan, do not mix!
Put in the oven and bake for 40 minutes.
For the end result, this cake will reverse itself leaving cake on the top and a sauce or pudding on the bottom.
Week 29 Recipe Pick
Fish, milk, and ketchup…gross, right?
But this was one of the only ways I would eat fish as a kid.
It sounds good, either way. Nice attempt to improve it. Yes, Mom loved Maine!