From the Booth: Hot Chocolate
4 Oct
As I type this I am on an airplane somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. I would much rather be sleeping like my delicious-smelling seatmate (oh, European men!), but I have committed to blog daily during the month of October for Vegan MoFo, and blog I shall! It’s all for you, my dear readers. I hope you all know how much I love you. Really, I do. I love you all dearly. SERIOUSLY. (Getting a restraining order will be much more difficult for you now, eh? Which country do you take it out in? I’m on the lam!) Anyhow, my snuggly monster friend and I (Monster Mo, if you’re wondering) shall each keep an eye open long enough to draft this blog post for you.
I figure that now is the time to close off our “From the Booth” series. If you are a follower of this bliggity blog, you will know that for the past 13 months, in preparation for the move to London that I am in the middle of RIGHT NOW, I have been working two jobs. The first was my Big Girl Job at a health insurance company, which was a full-time, Monday to Friday deal. The second was my Weekend Job (which quickly became weekends/evenings/holidays) as a parking lot attendant at a Halifax hospital.
To take advantage of the slow weekend shifts at the booth and maximize my blogging time, I started the “From the Booth” series, in which I cook vegan food in a parking lot. Yes, a parking lot. You shall find prior evidence of this here, here, and here.
The morning of my final booth shift EVER dawned dark and early as always (5:30am start time). I was running on 4 hours of sleep, having partook in some partying the night before, but I had decided to do one last cooking session and I don’t back out on promises made. So it was on.
It was an easy one though, I assure you. Supervisor Jim, his lady friend, Kaleigh, and I had decided to make vegan hot chocolate. There was no time, effort, or prior testing applied to this recipe.
Parking Booth Hot Chocolate
- 4 cups vanilla soy milk
- 4 tbsp cocoa powder
- 8 tbsp icing sugar
As a Girl Guide that has a Girl Guide leader for a mother and Boy Scout leader for a father, I have an impressive array of camping equipment at my disposal.
OKAY, just one second. Right now the man seated behind me is pushing the touch screen in-flight TV so facking hard I’m beginning to think it owes him money. This TV is attached to my seatback. It’s almost like having a tantrum-throwing toddler constantly kicking my seat. THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR HALF AN HOUR. Right now if this plane were to go down I wouldn’t mind so much because it would mean this facking man would go down with it. Seriously.
Okay, sorry about that. Where was I? Yes, I have endless camping equipment available to me, so in preparation for this post I grabbed a camping coffee pot and a propane camping burner.
I KNOW! I’ll recline my seat! TAKE THAT, ARSEHOLE! Mwahahahahhahahaha.
Meanwhile, back at the booth, Supervisor Jim showed up to give me my early morning break with Kaleigh in tow. She and I whipped up some chocolate flava in the coffee pot by sifting the cocoa powder and icing sugar into the vanilla soy milk. We mixed until all solids were dissolved.
So the reclining of the seat didn’t go as well as planned. I need to calm down about this frigger behind me. I have put on the soundtrack to Titanic. Come on, Irish pipes, work your magic! (What? You think that’s a morbid choice to make, as I fly over the spot it went down? I could be listening to the soundtrack from Snakes on a Plane, or, like, a biopic of Amelia Earhart, but I’m not. Calm down.)
When we were mixing the powders into the soy milk I noticed that the spout had become clogged with cocoa and sugar, but didn’t think much of it. I should have. You’ll see why soon.
Outside of the booth, on our little island between two lanes, we set the burner ablaze and put the hot cocoa on top to get, well, hot.
I left Kaleigh and Jim in charge as I ran up to the hospital for a bathroom break. When I returned literally minutes later, this is what I found:
Seriously, guys?! HOT CHOCOLATE?!? How did we mess up hot chocolate? Shit like this happens every. Single. Time.
Update: I just went to the airplane bathroom and gave Shithead the stink eye as I returned to my seat. He didn’t even have the decency to notice.
The hot chocolate was fine though. It turns out having a clogged spout leaves the building steam nowhere to go. SCIENCE!
We poured three cuppas and enjoyed one last boothstravaganza.
It was enjoyable enough, but was nothing to write home about.
Jimmy stated that it tasted a bit like cookies. He wasn’t wrong.
To be honest, it tasted exactly like it had been made on a camp stove in a parking lot.
Just like I like it.
As much as I won’t miss the 60- to 70-hour workweeks, I had a good year in the booth. I met a lot of great people and had a lot of fun with this series. It saddens me a bit to wrap it up. I hope you had fun with it too, my little virtual campers.
The violent punching of my seat has ceased. I think Frigger went to sleep. We’re now nearing midnight, Halifax time, which makes it coming up on 4am London time. You owe me, MoFoers.
xx
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Tags: Cocoa, Girl Guides, Hot Chocolate, Icing Sugar, Soy Milk, Sugar
So glad I stumbled onto your blog. Looking forward to your other postings. MMM hot chocolate.
Loved the parking lot cooking! Will miss it…anything coming from the plane?
Nicely done, niece. Or is that niecely done, nice? Whatever! Looking forward to Posts from Across the Pond. I wonder if they’ll arrest you when you set up your camp stove in Trafalgar Square?
I think you’ve just inspired my “Cooking ‘Round London” series. AHHAHA.
I’ve loved this series but what I really want to know is if you are going to get involved in Guiding in the UK. As a Guide leader myself I like to share the madness.
I have been thinking about it! I think I’m going to have to get myself settled first, but I love Guides so much I can’t see myself not going it. Where do you live?
I’m in Torquay in Devon. We’re always after more leaders but I guess you might like something closer to home.
Where did you get that Puffin mug??? I NEED IT!!!!!! haha
It’s Mandy’s (from Tattoo choir). She obvi picked it up somewhere in NFLD & Labrador.
I enjoy (wrote: enjour) how the last few pictures of the mug get bigger. And BIGGER. Scary. Ominous parking lot cookie hot chocolate. I enjoyed it. I didn’t spill any all the way from the booth to work (which is, for me, amazing)