Book #7: Bittersweet

Title: Bittersweet
Author: Alice Medrich

My friend Lyn owns this book, and I've spent some time perusing it at her house. When I found it on the half-off cookbook rack at Central Market, I had to take it home with me. For about five minutes, I considered giving it to my mom, and then I opened it and realized she'd have to buy her own copy if she wanted it. It's part scientific guide about the different types of chocolate, part memoir about Medrich's own awakening to her chocoholism, part experimental text (chocolate and greens, anyone?), part well-tested baking book, and part love story. Love of chocolate that is.

I've been reading the book for a few weeks, making a couple of things here and there, and last Saturday Annie and I had a brownie-baking taste test where we baked two of the brownie recipes from the book and tried them side-by-side. The kids prefer the cocoa brownies, which are impossibly smooth and fudgy, but I like the slight crunch of the brownies made with unsweetened chocolate. But no one turned down either variety. I think we'll try ice cream next. Yum.