A while back — I think it might have been mid June — on one of those halcyon days where Summer spread like warm butter out ahead of us and we thought we had all the time in the world for summer plans and lazy summer respites, we had this grand scheme. We would, we determined, visit as many local farms as we could and show off our beautiful island. We started a list, even hit a farm or two before things got too chaotic (no, we haven’t written about them yet), but then July turned into The Evil Month That Would Not Die, and our plans fell by the wayside.

Now, as we prepare to slay the Julybeast once and for all, and rejoin the foodblogging festivities, what do we discover? The absolute, most brilliant month-long event that encompasses everything we’d originally planned to do.

Of course I’m talking about being Rachel Ray for a month. Wait, no I’m not. (Shut up, Chopper.)

I’m talking about the August Eat Local Challenge from Jen at Life Begins @ 30. This venture began in San Francisco (Bay area residents sign up on the website Locavores), and has spread around the globe with participants as far away as England and Australia. How does it work? Simple. Check out the nuts and bolts, decide on your level of participation, then answer the following three questions:

1) What’s your definition of local?
2) What are your exemptions?
3) What are your personal goals?

1) Local…

For Bay area residents, the folks at Locavores defined their foodshed as anything within a hundred mile radius. Not having pulled out an atlas and ruler lately, I was quite unsure what our own 100 mile radius would include. Much to my surprise, after a bit of Photoshop tinkering and the best measuring I could muster, I came up with this impressive circle of locality:

Where’s Casa Belly-Timber? Think of us as the dot over the i in Victoria, just a quick dog walk from San Juan’s southern coast. The park’s in the wrong place, but hey, it’s a big world. We can forgive National Geographic a glitch or two.

Thing is, local as defined by a hundred mile radius covers a TON of ground, and in this neck of the woods, a surprising amount of diversity. Just to leave our archipelago takes us, to the west, over the Haro Strait to Victoria, and to the east, through the fertile Skagit Valley on Highway 20, lined with berry stands this time of year. Still within our radius, we’ve the great cities of Vancouver and Seattle and all they bring to the table. Is it any wonder we feel a bit spoiled here?

Spoiled enough, I think, that it’s worth it to take our definition of local down a step further.

This is San Juan County. According to the official county site, we’ve got 176 named islands and reefs (up to 743 at low tide!), a population (according to the 2001 census) of 14,400, and we’re the smallest county in Washington at 175 square miles of land (and a whole lot of water).

As I’m writing this, I glance out the front door and see a van from San Juan Vineyards drive past. Out the windows across the room, the harbor sparkles in the morning sun and scattered amongst the yachts and pleasure boats, I can make out the distinct shapes and gear of gillnetters, crab boats, and the few remaining purse seiners from the fleet that, as a child, I watched make the turn round Cattle Point and out into the strait. Just three blocks up the street, the community arts center’s parking lot waits for Saturday’s farmer’s market, and in a few hours, when we make our five mile drive home, we’ll pass four of the forty two local farms featured in the San Juan Island Farm Products Guide. This little island and her archipelago sisters; this is our true foodshed, and this is where we’ll attempt to gather the lion’s share of our August food.

2) Exemptions…

And this, alas, is where I have to confess to my hideous lack research. My habit, while zipping through the local market on a weekly grocery run, is to scope out bargains, not locally produced versions of cereal, juice, pasta, all the staples we take for granted. I don’t know yet how much I’ll locate and how much of that will be affordable. Our tight budget is such that we may find ourselves faced with far too many karma-draining decisions. We’d love to make island juice or island granola a regular purchase, but our bank account may scream in protest. Even so, the plan is to seek local options when we can and try everything at least once.

Of course we’re not going to find local coconut, local cinnamon, or local galangal, and unlike Gary Paul Nabham in the opening chapters of Coming Home to Eat, we will not be emptying our pantry. So, we will be making a few exceptions for special occasion meals; ideally, those exceptions will not involve much new purchasing of exotic ingredients, but rather, use of stock at hand. Oh, and Chopper Dave and I have a deal: He keeps his single malt scotch if I get to keep my green tea and dark chocolate. It’s a sanity thing, trust me.

3) Goals…

We’ve gone back and forth on this a bit, wavering between a 70 percent or so target, and not setting a percentage at all. I’m the sort who avoids doing math at all costs, so I’m all for not calculating a percentage and instead just saying “let’s try to eat locally as often as possible.” That’s a simple enough goal.

Goal number two brings us all the way back to that grand scheme we had in May: Show off our island. We’re going to aim for at least a farm or two a week, though we can’t promise we’ll get all of our farm-visit posts out in a timely manner. We do still have one off-island trip in the middle of it all (a wedding in Newport Oregon on the 20th), and of course we’re knee-deep in tourist season which means many many hours of work. If we can cram even four farm visits and a few posts about our local bounty into our crazy August schedule, and if we can learn unexpected ways to increase our local food intake in the process, I’ll consider it a successful month.

So we’re stuck in traffic on I-5 (note to planners of military air shows: staging them within viewing distance of major interstate thoroughfares is DUMB. Ooooh, purty loop-de-loop contrails… CRASH…), and I realize, just south of Seattle — where, oh man, it’s total gridlock — that I’ve left my Chinese tea set in Portland. Not only that, but it’s packed in lord knows what unlabeled box and I probably won’t see it for a year.

This sad fact reminds me of the IMBB post I’m supposed to write Sunday evening (assuming we make the 5:10 ferry, and it’s becoming increasingly apparent that we won’t), and that in turn reminds me of tea ceremonies (of which my family has none, other than we drink a LOT of the stuff) and of the Classical Chinese Garden in Portland, which has an absolutely lovely tea house that I recommend to everyone who ever visits Portland. Unless, of course, they are visiting Portland to attend a military air show.

My favorite thing about the tea house (aside from the view of the garden and the sublime variety of green teas) is that each cup of tea is prepared in a gaiwan, which is infinitely better than the caddy full of tea bags and the stainless steel mini-pot of hot water I get at just about any other tea-serving establishment I frequent. Except for our favorite dim sum joint, of course. There, we get a nice big pot of jasmine/chrysanthemum blend and I drink it like it’s going out of style.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. We did have a single afternoon last week during which we could play with food and tea, but sadly, we had little time to do anything fancy — no puff pastry barquettes or plaid raviolis, alas. Instead, Chopper made a Southwestern Corn Tortilla soup with Chimayo Sunset tea (which was quite good though I had difficulty picking out the tea’s flavor), and, because it was the day after 25 cent U-pick oyster day (more on that glorious event in a future post) and I had a bucket of the puppies crying to be shucked, he McGuyvered up a smoker with drying rack, pie tin, and skillet lid, and provided us with some to-die-for Jasmine Tea Smoked Oysters with Garlic Green Tea Emulsified Vinaigrette.

On the morning’s drive to work: Baling Season.

Oh, my beloved bumper. How I love your warm smoothness against my furry forehead.

(Taken in the parking lot of our local winery. We had to pick up the cat and move it so we could safely drive out.)

Great Moments in Divination, chapter XVII

It is a little known fact, not written in the annals of magic, that Sybil Trelawney, professor of divination, has made not two but three accurate prophecies during her sixteen years at Hogwarts. As the third prophecy was about the ingredients of Hagrid’s breakfast one Sunday morning in late September and not about He Who Must Not Be Named, most dismiss it as mere coincidence and continue to suggest that Professor Trelawney, great-great granddaughter of the illustrious Cassandra Trelawney, is a fraud.

We here at Grumblebein’s Society for the Restoration of Magical Standing believe that this is poppycock. Sybil Trelawney’s predictive powers are quite strong, and this fact is no better demonstrated than by the brief breakfast anecdote that follows.

Trelawney, as we all know, is quite an admirer of tea. Not only do the leaves serve her divination needs, but she drinks it daily by the gallon. On the particular September morning in question, however, calamity struck: she ran clean out. So, being a woman of sound mind and infinite resource, she bundled herself in scarves and sashes (it was quite breezy that day), and trundled down to Hagrid’s hut to seek out a fresh supply.

Hagrid, it turned out, hadn’t a speck of tea about him. He was, in fact, making Turkish coffee and toasting slices of bread. He invited Trelawney to join him, and so she did, nearly knocking over a jar of paprika as she took her place at the table, unaware that this acceptance would lead to yet another Great Moment in Divination.

Now, it is a little known fact (though perhaps slightly more known than Sybil Trelawney’s Third Prophecy) that the grounds of a thick cup of Turkish coffee are unsurpassed as tools of divination. And so, it came as no shock to the expert clairvoyant, when, upon setting down her empty cup next to an earthenware pot of yogurt and a basket of eggs, she had a most singular vision.

The coffee grounds, it seemed, had formed themselves into a crystal clear picture of the future, thus prompting Sybil Trelawney to proclaim:

“When the clock chimes thrice three and sleep is vanquished, four nestlings unhatched shall join with four slices of bread unburnt and two cups yogurt unspoilt, and the eating of dishes from far off lands shall be attended by the consumption of auspicious red powders and curious culinary herbs in small amounts and all will rejoice in its grand flavor. Be warned!”

Hagrid, oblivious to the significance of Trelawney’s pronouncement simply said, “Well of course I’ve got four eggs and four pieces of toast and yogurt and paprika. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are dropping by for a fine Turkish breakfast of Cilbir!”

It is regrettable that Hagrid was unable to recognize Trelawney’s Third Prophecy for what it was, for then we at Grumblebein’s Society for the Restoration of Magical Standing would have his account for the archives as well as hers, and the archives (as well as Trelawney’s reputation) would be richer for it.
One curious footnote: When Sybil Trelawney related this anecdote to us for our records she added a phrase we have yet to decipher. We include it here in the hope that some other scholar of magic might recognize its import. In fact, it may be that this Third Prophecy has much more about it than a simple prediction of breakfast. It may be that this Third Prophecy tells of the ultimate demise of the Dark Lord himself.

The phrase, which Trelawney uttered in a deep and portentous voice, was thus:

“Be warned, I say unto you. For when the days near thirty-one, it’s all to do with EoMEoTE!“

–Herophile Trelawney, Chief Council for Culinary Conduits of Clairvoyance, Grumblebein’s Society for the Restoration of Magical Standing

Cilbir — a delightful Turkish dish of poached eggs, garlic yogurt sauce and paprika butter. Serve with bread or toast.

Turkish coffee optional.

We missed Paper Chef last month. Well, actually, we didn’t: we cooked a Paper Chef meal, but we were then trapped in Portland away from computers for an extra day and lost our chance to post about it. We will soon, just for kicks, and only because the meal contained an edible object of such unspeakable terror that we dare not utter its name. So, so horrible… ph-nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn! Ahem. But enough about that. On to August.)

This month, says Owen of Tomatilla, it’s Paper Chef, the Local edition. Bonus points to everyone who sources their ingredients locally. (Bonus points? This is scored on a point system and no one told me?)

To that end, Owen picked ingredients that allowed at least most of us a fighting chance at local sourcing:

Peaches
Dried chilies
Edible flowers (especially lavender — woohoo!)
And (another woohoo!)
A local ingredient of your choosing

Items two and three were no problem. We have edible flowers of several kinds in our garden, and as fortune would have it, we had two bags of locally grown dried chilies left over from a recent trip to the farmer’s market.

Peaches were a bit more of an issue. The farmer’s market doesn’t have much fruit this time of year and the one farm I thought might grow peaches (or at least nectarines) was closed on the day we’d planned a visit. So, off to the grocery store where we broke our 100 mile radius, but kept ourselves in state by picking up a few peaches from Wenatchee Washington, just east of the Cascades.

But what to do about ingredient #4? We had ripe items in our garden, but we wanted something other than a vegetable and Chopper was getting this serious hankering for a Caribbean-themed meal. That’s it, I said, let’s go to the farmer’s market and see if Spot Prawn Guy is there.

The local spot prawn season is short — it only lasts a month or so in summer, but during that time, not only can we find spot prawns at the farmers market, but roadside stands with hand-painted signs announcing SPOT PRAWNS are as omnipresent as signs for charity car washes. (Okay, so we saw only two spot prawn signs and two charity car wash signs during the month of July, but you get the idea…)

During my childhood here in the 1970s, the stands and sales were plentiful. Now though, from what we can tell it’s pretty much down to one guy and his boat and his stand at the Northeast corner of the farmer’s market.

Of course Spot Prawn Guy didn’t tell us exactly where he got his amazingly fresh and delicious prawns (if he did, he’d have to kill us), but we know it’s nearby — probably no farther than Lummi Island, about 15 miles to the Northeast. We did find out we were quite lucky: this was his last catch of the season.

So, other than the peaches, did we stay in our radius? Well, um…. Okay, I admit, it was partly my fault. I had this crazy notion involving yams and the only yams we could find were from California. Yeah, we could have switched to potatoes from the garden, but it just wouldn’t have been the same. Oh, and Chopper used allspice, pepper, and garlic salt. (Forgive us, please!) But seriously, look how close to our kitchen our edible flowers are. See? We even measured:

(I should note that the herbs we used are just out of shot in that second photo, also a mere 16 feet from the kitchen window.)

So, with (mostly) local ingredients obtained and mise en place … er, in place, let the improvisational cooking begin:

And how did it turn out?

Very Caribbean. Spicy, yet fruity and with a definite taste of the sea. I’d say this was one of those dishes I can only classify as “weird but good.” It’s a unique flavor combo and definitely not for everyone, but we liked it well enough to eat it up and contemplate variations on the theme. Oh, and it’s pretty. My camera says thank you for the pretty.

Since we here at Belly-Timber are all about cheap wines on a cheap budget (Mmm, Gato Negro, baby…), we’ve yet to participate in Wine Blogging Wednesday. It’s not that we don’t like good wine — we love it and cherish it and wish we could take it home and show it a good time more often — it’s just that, well, to be blunt, we’re cheap. If we’ve got thirty bucks to blow on a nice meal at home, twenty of it’s going into Ahi steaks and the ten bucks we’ve left is getting us the largest amount of wine we can find this side of a box. We do not do boxes.

This month, we make an exception.

It’s Local Challenge month and the assignment for Wine Blogging Wednesday is “Drink Local. Real Local. … Drink a wine from the winery nearest to your apartment/house/shack/bungalow/flat/tent.” Lenn from Lenndevours has even threatened to get out the atlas and fact check, just to be sure we’re not cheating. I figured we’d save him the trouble, so I did a little checking of our own with Yahoo Maps’ handy driving directions function and came up with this short list:

1) San Juan Cellars. At 5.3 miles from our home, they’re definitely the closest, but there’s a catch. The location isn’t so much a winery as a gift shop wherein they sell their wines, all of which are made with grapes grown in Eastern Washington, at least 150 miles away. Not exactly what I had in mind for drinking local.

2) Westcott Bay Orchards. A bit too far away for our purposes at 15.9 miles, but they’re worth mention as a unique winery that produces a tasty hard cider from “vintage” European cider apples. They’re on our list to check out in the near future.

3) Lopez Island Vineyards. Yahoo Maps failed me on this one, but I’d say 6 miles as the gull flies. Or as the orca swims. You get the picture. They feature several estate-grown wines and are a perfect choice for a visit … if the visit didn’t involve a full day off and a battle with tourists over space on the inter-island ferry. We’ll be saving that one for later as well.

4) San Juan Vineyards. Ah, here we are, just 8.9 miles from the house, and they grow their own! Time for a quick road trip!

The winery, established in 1996, is located three miles northwest of Friday Harbor on Roche Harbor road. B. of Culinary Fool visited last month and wrote about a camel she spied amongst the cows across the road. We missed the camel, but discovered instead this rather charming cat in the parking lot. A cat who fell deeply in love with the bumper of our Caravan and refused to leave without serious coaxing.

To the right of the parking lot sits the gift shop and tasting room. A century ago, this same building was San Juan Island’s one-room school house. Up the gentle, south-facing slope from the shop’s deck are outbuildings for the wine’s manufacture, a tiny chapel (available for weddings, of course), and beyond that, eight acres of cool-climate varietal grapes, designated for the production of the winery’s two Estate grown wines, Madeleine Angevine and Siegerrebe.

The first of the two Estate grown wines wasn’t available for tasting, so we zeroed in on the second, eager to discover what a truly local wine could offer us — and we were not disappointed.

The Siegerrebe has a citrus bouquet but with hints of spice, and the flavor — spice, honey, grapefruit — was delicate, not overpowering, but sweet enough that we both thought this wine would be best served as an aperitif or with a single, subtle dish (steamed butter clams or crab would be my local choices).

It might seem surprising that island-grown grapes could produce such a sweet wine, except that the San Juans have the geographical fortune of resting in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains. With its own collection of microclimates, our island gets just 18 to 28 inches of rainfall a year, compared to a whopping 120 in the little town of Forks on the peninsula’s western edge. Seattle, a part-time rain shadow beneficiary, gets 37. East of us, the Cascade rain shadow provides the Yakima and Columbia Valleys with one of the best grape-growing (and apple-growing) climates in the Northwest, and this is where many Puget Sound wineries get all but a select few of their varietals.

San Juan Vineyards ships regionally; their website lists a number of restaurants, grocers, and specialty shops in the Islands and in other parts of Washington that carry their wines. Where Chopper and I work, we carry the Chardonnay by the bottle, and their 2002 Syrah (a three time gold medal winner) is our house syrah.

We left the vineyard with a bottle of the Siegarrebe for $13.75 and a bargain: a three-for-twenty sale on their Semillon Chardonnay. There’s not a chance those four bottles will last us the month, but we’ve just scratched the surface of drinking locally. We’ve got Lopez Island and some hard cider ahead of us, and, come to think of it, it’s been far too long since we’ve headed down to the pub for a pint of locally-brewed Moggy Mild.

For more food blogging and photos from San Juan Vineyards, check out B’s post at Culinary Fool!

Ghosts in the mist: False Bay at low tide.

Where are the pictures, you ask? Where’s the Belly-banner? Well, good question. Someone was snurtching bandwidth from us by hotlinking to a photo, so I went into my control panel and tested out a little tool called “hotlink protection.”

Apparently it’s protecting me from myself, and it doesn’t know how to deactivate. As in, I’ve deactivated it, but the photos are still all gone. On the server, yes, but invisible to visitors. All that, and Chopper got called into work on SciFi Friday! And I have glorious Sugar High Friday photos to show off… if only…

So, check back soon. Send sympathy cards. I’ll try and get this puppy working again shortly. If not, I’ll just have to work on my food writing descriptive skilz, eh?

Updated to add: Well then there now. Apparently the images are working. On. Every. Browser. But. Mine. It’s an evil plot, I tell ya, designed to say “Hey, Miz D, what is up with all this food blogging? Go write yer durn novel!” Yes, Mom.

and another update: Problem solved! Woohoo! Oh, wait. Now I have to do a post and photos while Chopper’s at work. Dammit all.

…and now you know everything you need to know about a typical Friday night at Casa Belly-Timber. Party animals, all of us…

Blame it on the softball stage.

No, not the one that has to do with sugar, but the one that involves guys taking days off of work to whack at balls and slide at bags in the dirt. That softball stage.

Not that I have a problem with softball, generally speaking, it’s just that when Chopper and I plan our day off to include dueling Sugar High Friday projects (Me: truffles. Him: Irish coffee Pot de crème), we don’t particularly like it when that plan is ruined because a co-worker has managed to get every ligament in his ankle torn to shreds playing softball. Is it too evil of me to mention our co-worker’s team lost? I didn’t think so.

So, here I am, flying solo. Granted, Chopper came home for a brief respite between lunch and dinner shifts and spun me some sugar, but the rest of it is mine, all mine, baby.

And, as usual, I got a little carried away.

In honor of tonight’s Perseid Meteor Shower and the comet at its source, Mrs D presents:

The Swift-Tuttle Dark Chocolate Espresso Berry Comet Truffle

The gist of it:

One 3 1/2 ounce dark chocolate bar. It is crucial that this not just be any dark chocolate bar, but one that is made up only of cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar, and if absolutely necessary a bit of soy lecithin and vanilla extract. It should be at least 70% cocoa if not higher. That namby pamby Hershey’s crap just will not do. Fortunately for me, I’m a dark chocolate fiend and I’d already scoped out my scrumptious Eat Local alternative: Terra Nostra’s Organic 73% Intense Dark Chocolate Bar, made just a short jaunt to the Northeast in beautiful Vancouver BC.

Can I just say, at the risk of getting all gloopy and lovesick, that this chocolate bar rocks my world. If I was only allowed one thing to carry forward from the Eat Local Challenge if would be this chocolate bar.

One quarter cup heavy cream. Ideally, this cream should be fresh, local, and organic. Ideally. Sometimes though, the only cream remotely organic isn’t remotely local, and isn’t remotely affordable. Oh well.

A smidgen of unsalted butter. Don’t ask me how much a smidgen is. I think I tossed in about a teaspoon. I think it was because I panicked while lost in the middle of recipe invention and had images of unmoldable chocolate globules. Or something.

Toss these things into a double-boiler. Break the chocolate bar into chunks first. Try very hard not to eat any. When it’s all melty, add:

Two teaspoons of Lopez Island Farm Marionberry Syrup. I am so making waffles so I can use the rest of this stuff. Then I’m hopping the ferry and raiding the farm for more.

One tablespoon of finely ground fresh roasted espresso beans from the San Juan Coffee Roasting Company. How freshly roasted? How about within hours of my purchase. Oh, and the company’s store down on Cannery Landing has some lovely chocolates of their own as well. I was sorely tempted.

One teaspoon of San Juan Cellars Late Harvest Riesling. I know, I know, what’s the point of wine in a truffle? It’s not like anyone can taste it. Well, it’s like this: I came out of the Roasting Company and it was ferry loading time. Translation: No chance in hell of crossing the street for at least ten minutes. So, it was either wait outside or wander into the San Juan Cellars retail store and have a 10 a.m. wine tasting. Like I’m going to pass that up. I left with a bottle of the Late Harvest Riesling and the plan to add a spoonful of it to my truffle recipe just so I could mention the fact that in Friday Harbor one can get a 10 a.m. wine tasting ten feet from the ferry dock.

Mix everything together and try not to panic about whether it’ll harden well enough (or too well). Put a lid on it and pop it in the fridge for a few hours, or overnight if you prefer.

When the mixture has sufficiently hardened, it’s time to get messy. Very messy. I’m all about making truffles the old-fashioned messy way. Or maybe it’s that no one’s ever taught me how to properly make truffles. Either way, I set up next to the sink because I know I’m going to have to wash my hands at least twice for every single truffle I make.

First I set out my supplies.

The pan of chocolate.

A Turkish coffee cup from the same set we kidnapped for our eggy IMBB #16

A jar of Dutch unsweetened chocolate powder that’s been in my pantry for ages so I’ve no idea where it’s from. Pour about a teaspoon full of it into the Turkish coffee cup.

A bowl of freshly picked blackberries. The original plan was to drive to a farm this morning and buy Marionberries to go with the syrup, but then softball happened. So instead, I took Platelicker for a walk and picked blackberries along the way. Himalayan Blackberries are ubiquitous and quite tasty this time of year, but oh those vines are invasive pests! If we could just discipline them to behave themselves around the locals we’d plant blackberries in our own yard instead of rip them out each spring.

A plate to set truffles on.

Now, the messy part. Pull out a dose of chocolate, about the size of an aggie shooter and work it into the shape of a bowl. Right away it’s going to start getting horribly sticky and you’re going to want lick your fingers, but hold off just for a moment. Ignore the fact that some of the buttery stuff has separated and made light flecks in the mixture. It’ll still taste good.

Take a blackberry and place it into your chocolate bowl, then take more chocolate and work it around the top to form the lid, enclosing the berry and forming a sphere.

Drop the sticky ball into the Turkish coffee cup. Wash your hands. Or lick your fingers. Your choice.

Pour another half-teaspoon of Dutch chocolate over the sticky ball, then lift up the cup and swirl it, like you’re swirling cream into your coffee. (But don’t ever put cream in Turkish coffee because that would be wrong.) The chocolate powder will cover the truffle in a nice even coat and then all you need do is lift the puppy out and set it on a plate. You may not even need to wash your hands a second time.

Repeat this till you’re out of chocolate. With this recipe I made three truffles with berries and six without.

Next, prepare the comet’s fiery tail. (Or rather, make sugar decorations for your truffle so it’ll be all pretty for the camera.) Find the smallest ladle in the house and coat the outside of it with vegetable oil. Heat sugar and water over the stove till it reaches caramel stage. Grab a spoon and quickly spin the sugar over the ladle so it creates a lovely, golden, Jackson Pollack mess. Wait till the sugar cools, then carefully remove it from the ladle.

Set the sugar bowl on a plate, place the truffle inside and decorate. I saved a blackberry for a topper, some broken sugar bowl for outer décor, and more of the fabulous marionberry syrup for drizzle.

So, there it is, the Swift-Tuttle Dark Chocolate Espresso Berry Comet Truffle. All chocolaty, all yummy, and all mine. Chopper’s not even home from work yet, and come to think of it, he doesn’t even like coffee all that much and this comet’s got one hell of an espresso kick to it. Yes, it’s all mine.

Hmmm. Maybe softball’s not so bad after all.