A few weeks ago in the midst of a heatwave, Molly and Mike brought us over to Mister Spicee (6889 Victoria, Montreal), a tiny Trinidadian fast food place that specializes in doubles (two pieces of yellow, fried flatbread stuffed with things like chickpeas and goat meat). We picked up a few, along with an order of pholourie (savoury deep fried dough!), and ate the greasy, spicy, delicious mess in a nearby park. When we were done, we ducked into a small Trinidadian market where Molly was in search of a particular masala blend she could use for an attempt at pickled scotch bonnet peppers. While we poked around the store, I found a package of "Tea Chocolate". The small package contained two ping pong sized balls of chocolate, a single nutmeg nut, a few cinnamon sticks and leaves. I bought it.

After some Internet research I discovered that I had purchased Jamaican hot chocolate, a common breakfast drink in Jamaica. The chocolate balls are made of roasted cocoa seeds that have been pounded to a pulp and then rolled into balls. A few days later, I got an email from Molly asking me how the chocolate tea had turned out. At the time it was too hot to even think about drinking hot chocolate, so I waited until now, mid-September, when the air has taken on that early autumn biting chill. I invited Molly over to try it out with me. We skipped ahead and drank the sweet hot chocolate with desert instead of breakfast: my end-of-summer plum crumble, her homemade pistachio ice cream.

(Directions are based on this excellent write-up.)

1 Jamaican chocolate ball
3 tbsp sugar
¼ cup sweetened condensed milk
3 cups water (the recipe suggested a quart, but we found it watered down the chocolate)
A pinch of salt.
Cinnamon leaves
Nutmeg

Grate chocolate ball onto a plate.

Bring the water to boil in the meantime, and then add chocolate and cinnamon to the pot of boiling water.

Allow the tea to boil for fifteen to twenty minutes. Sweeten to taste. Fish out the assorted cinnamon sticks and leaves. Pour into mugs and grate nutmeg to taste into your drink.

And drink. Just a warning - the oils from the chocolate rise to the top of the mug and create a hot slick that you might want to let cool down before taking that first sip.

The package I bought was fairly old, so the flavours were more muted than what I imagine the real thing to taste like. But the grating of the chocolate and nutmeg, followed by a nice slurp of condensed milk makes for a satisfying ritual. With autumn just around the corner, this might be the kind of beverage you want stocked in your kitchen for those days when you need something a little different to cut through the cold.

Café Joe (3068 St-Antoine E.): I spent this long weekend morning having breakfast with 3 people who spend a good deal of time thinking about drains, exploring drains, taking pictures of drains (one of them being my boyfreind). And yes, by "drains" I mean those mysterious tubes of piping that criss-cross the underbelly of the city carrying our sewage, our hormone-addled refuse and our storm water out into the great blue yonder. Despite what you may think, there is less stomping through shit than you may imagine. Regardless, it makes for interesting breakfast-time conversation.

I’ve resigned myself to being the screechy-voiced person who constantly stammers, "Isn’t that dangerous?!", but I’m (secretly?) charmed by it. And we had plenty of time to discuss drains, plus a million other topics, as we waited for our breakfast at Café Joe. It’s a cute place, that kind of sunny, Formica, rag-tag melange that is easier to find in Montreal than most Canadian cities. Danielle, a Francophone who knows her breakfast places, calls it "Anglophone hippie" because it’s hard to find a Francophone place like this these days, even though I associate the Montreal hippie aesthetic with Francophones. Anyway. It was one of the topics we discussed. The point being that we. Waited. So. Long. For. Our. Breakfast. Granted, it was a holiday and they had staffed only for a weekday, but seriously? 20 minutes for our coffees? Add another half hour for an allongé plus our breakfasts which came maybe an hour later. Granted, the food was enjoyable (above average diner fare), and I would possibly go again if I knew the wait wouldn’t be so long. When we were finally finished, they dropped me off at the nearby Atwater Market so that they could do their exploring, and I bought fingerling potatoes, fennel, fiddleheads and the fixings for a Cola Cake.

In the time it took for us to wait for our breakfast, I could’ve baked this cake. The recipe is from "Two for the Road" by Jane and Michael Stern, which I read (devoured, actually) on my train trip back to Montreal last night (thank you to Emily for the recommendation!). Should I feel guilty that I’m excited about eating a slice of this for breakfast tomorrow morning while I wait for the bus on my way to work, which will hopefully be running despite the Montreal Metro strike? I’m leaning towards "yes".

Cola Cake with Broiled Peanut Butter Frosting
Jane and Michael Stern

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
16 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa [I only had uh, Quick at home, and it was fine – I just cut down on a little bit of the sugar]
1 cup Cola with fizz [they list Pepsi, but I used Coca-Cola because I am a Coke kind of person]
½ cup buttermilk [I substituted ½ tablespoon of lemon juice + enough milk to make a half cup]
2 large eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup miniature marshmallows
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a baking pan.
Combine the flour and sugar in a bowl.
In another bowl combine the melted butter, Coke and cocoa and pour into the flour and sugar.
Sir until well blended.
Add the buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, vanilla.
Stir in the marshmallows.
Pour into the pan and bake for 40 minutes.

For the peanut butter frosting, cream together 6 tablespoons of butter, 1 cup brown sugar, 2/3 cups of smooth peanut butter and a ¼ cup milk. They also call for 2/3 chopped salted peanuts, but I didn’t have any, so I added a dash of salt. When the cake has cooled a little, slather the icing on top, and then broil for a few seconds until the frosting starts to bubble. Remove and cool completely.
The cake is moist and sweet and the marshmallows melt into a cloud-like consistency, impossible to discern from the cake.

And, if you want to learn about drains, or at least see beautiful pictures of them and other abandoned locations:

Andrew: http://worksongs.com
Danielle: http://www.uer.ca/~nel58/photos/
Michael: http://vanishingpoint.ca/