Grasshopper !

Ingredients:

1 3/4 ounces cold heavy cream

1 ounce white crème de cacao liqueur

3/4 ounce crème de menthe

Ice

1 fresh mint leaf, or chocolate for grating (optional)

Instructions:

Place a 5-ounce martini, coupe, or Nick and Nora glass in the refrigerator or freezer for at least 5 minutes.

Place 1 3/4 ounces cold heavy cream, 1 ounce white crème de cacao liqueur, and 3/4 ounce crème de menthe in a cocktail shaker. Add enough ice to fill the shaker halfway full. Seal the shaker and shake until the outside of the shaker is cold and frosty, about 20 seconds.

Pour through a fine-mesh strainer into the glass. Garnish with 1 fresh mint leaf or finely grate chocolate over the surface.

Courtesy: The Kitchn

But I was curious recently, since I make myself matcha tea a lot, I tried making hot chocolate the same way!

this is how I did it.

•add a heaping teaspoon of cacao to bowl

•add hot water, enough to submerge the cacao

• whisk the cacao with matcha whisk, the same way you'd whisk your matcha (zig zag or 'w')

•add the whisked cacao to your cup with already a spoon of honey for a natural sweetener.

•let the honey mix well and dissolve

•fill the cup with hot water till its full

Or alternatively, add hot milk or milk foam.

(Any kind of milk)

I don't use milk but if you want the actual milkiness of chocolate milk you could do that! 🥛

It's so much easier for me to "kill" that craving.

Remember ladies, cacao is great

for the menstrual cycle!

hot shower or cold shower // texting or calling // earphones or headphones // paperback or hardcover OR kindle/iBooks/ao3 100% // matte or gel // 12 hour clock or 24 hour clock // blue or green!!! // sunsets or sunrises // tulips or orchids NO - herbs and fruit/veggie producing house plants!!! // candle light or moon light // sci-fi or horror or comedy // pen or pencil // pandas or koalas or black bears // gold or silver // sneakers or boots (blundstones are timeless multi-weather essentials) // denim jacket or leather jacket // pink or purple // wind chimes or dreamcatchers // chocolate or sour candy // deodorant or perfume // drive-in movie theatre or the cinema // pastel colors or neutral/earth tones // butterflies or honeybees // lemonade or iced tea // past or future // constellations or aurora borealis

You’ll never see a tree barf or a flower sneeze. Still, plants get sick, much as we do. Their symptoms just look different. Their leaves may curl or drop. Their stems can break out in spots. Their fruit might shrivel.

One such plant sickness is called swollen shoot disease. Over the past two decades, it’s swept through cacao trees in Ivory Coast, a country in West Africa. Cacao is the main ingredient in chocolate. Hundreds of thousands of these trees have sickened or died. “We saw this rapid, rapid death. Trees were dying in one year,” Judy Brown says of the epidemic.

Explainer: What is a virus?

Brown works at the University of Arizona in Tucson. As a plant pathologist, she studies plant disease. Her specialty is viruses, the tiniest type of microbe. In people, viruses cause many illnesses, including the common cold. Viruses also are to blame for swollen shoot disease.

“Many people don’t realize that plants become sick from viruses,” says Brown. Other microbes, including bacteria and fungi, also make plants sick. Insects often spread viruses and other germs from plant to plant.

To stop that spread, farmers usually spray chemicals meant to kill germs or pests. They also may rip out and destroy sick plants. This keeps them from passing the disease on to healthy neighbors. In 2018, the Coffee and Cocoa Council in Ivory Coast announced a plan to uproot 3,000 square kilometers (about 1,200 square miles) of infected cacao trees. That’s an area around the size of Rhode Island.

Even such drastic measures may not go far enough to stop a dangerous disease.

Fortunately, scientists have other tricks up their sleeves. Researchers are working to understand crop diseases, identify sick plants, fight the attackers and breed plants that can fight illness on their own. They hope such efforts will keep foods like chocolate, bread and oranges on all of our plates for centuries to come.