I've had trouble coming up with anything chocolate I really considered to be comfort food. In general it's such a normal part of my life that I don't reach for it any more than normal when things get rough. Tonight I figured out that hot chocolate is it - my chocolate comfort food. Things have been more than a trifle stressful of late and I've had trouble getting my mind into the right place to deal properly (raging arrogance seems a good place at the moment). With the weather turning and the stress mounting I absent-mindedly mixed up a dose of hot cocoa and kicked back with it instead of a beer and everything was good. Sure it only works until I get to work the next morning, but it sure drives ones problems away for a bit.

This season I'm going to try to stick to the hot cocoa end of things as opposed the the drinking chocolates. There are a couple of nice benefits to going the cocoa route. If you get the good stuff you get a lovely dose of all those healthy antioxidants and such and you miss out on all that fat and all those calories that come with actual chocolate. Total win all around, right? Sure, a little drinking chocolate now and again is nice, but some of that stuff is just crazy heavy. And even my personal simple recipe hot chocolate is loaded with chocolate and heavy cream. Hmmm... maybe it's time for me to come up with a nice simple cocoa recipe.

Anyway, it's hot chocolate season and it got here just in time. I needed it.