Sparks from the Fire

OK. I agree. “smell” is a funny word. It normally connotes something bad, though that is not the word’s intention. A smell can be something good, bad, or in between. But nonetheless, when we hear the word, our minds usually jump to garbage or breath or even worse. If one says, “He smells”, no one ever thinks that means that he smells good.

But today, in my quest for all things inspirational, I’ve decided to dive into inspirational smells. I invite you to share your own with me. Your own ideas, that is. Perhaps we’ll come up with the definitive list! So here goes…

Oops, before we start, one disclaimer, or perhaps, warning: This is only my list. You may violently disagree with some of my choices. There is, on the subject of smells, a distinct relativity to the subject. Simply put, one person’s perfume may be another’s stink. The nostrils can’t really tell, you know; it’s the brain that decides, and that choice is quite arbitrary from person to person, brain to brain.

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Chocolate. Ah, what a word. I am in awe before it. What a concept!  If there was ever an Inspirational food, it is chocolate.

Chocolate – from a bean. A bean, brown and from the earth, bitter if unprocessed, but add the unlikely ingredients of sugar from a cane and butter from a cow and out of the earth’s dark mud, humans have invented the food of the gods.

Europeans first tasted chocolate in 1519 when the Aztec emperor Moctezuma greeted Cortés and his army with a drink of chocolatl. Cacao beans were both a valuable commodity, and a major form of currency in the Aztec empire (AD 1376-1520). Those Aztecs knew their stuff! However, long before the Aztec Empire, Mesoamerican lowland civilizations including the Maya (200 BC-AD 1550) raised and traded cacao as a valuable commodity. They knew too.

Today, it’s simply, for me, the ultimate eating experience. I’m drinking it now as I write. Every morning I get up around 4:30 and write this blog. It’s quiet, the phone don’t ring, I am alone to think and drink… my chocolate. I make it from scratch. The anticipation of it awakens me.

Both wife and I keep a mix of bars ready opened on our kitchen counter. We’re into dark chocolate – none of that baby milk chocolate for us. Give me the dark stuff at 64%, smooth, rich and oh so satisfying. We keep trying the new brands, the exotic brands from around the world, but really, for us, it comes down to Lindt. 30 years ago Lindt cree a Berne, [370g bitter sweet chocolate with vanilla, emulsifier added] so overwhelmed me that I bought a foot long bar, framed it in glass and hung it on my kitchen wall right beneath the clock. It hangs there still today.

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