Wow, a first posting.  Welcome to Cocoa and Lavender!  Doreen and I hope to share with you some of our favorite recipes, foodways, traditions, sources and ideas once a week.  We would like to say this will happen weekly on a certain day of the week, but we know ourselves better.  Just once a week will have to suffice!

Now, I admit that I am writing from Tucson, one of the warmer and more meteorological safe (and pleasant) zones in the country right now.  But I still want to say it gets chilly in the evening – or at least chilly enough for us to pull out our comfort food guns and revive recipes we loved when we lived in Maine, where it was cold 10 months of the year.  Comfort foods.  Now there should be an entire blog on that subject.

But first, a little digression…  Cocoa and lavender.  Why the name?  That is a hard question to answer as both Doreen and I are very passionate about many foods, many flavors, many aromas.  For me, each day begins with a big French bowl of Italian Pernigotti Cocoa.  I have yet to find a cocoa as rich, round, and floral as this one – and, even though it finally made the Saveur Top 100 this year, I have been buying it for more than a decade, mostly from chefshop.com.  (It comes in kilo bags which always feels slightly suspect.)  I am not a cocoa aficionado.  There must be some special course or degree to get to attain that moniker.  But I am serious.  I need my cocoa each day – and don’t confuse cocoa with hot chocolate.  That is a horse of a different color, to quote our friend Dorothy.  Cocoa is milk, sugar and cocoa powder.  Maybe some vanilla.  Maybe a pinch of salt.  In my somewhat-past-middle-age years, I even use good quality skim milk. Hot chocolate, on the other hand, is melted chocolate – bittersweet, milk chocolate or a combination – in milk, light cream or heavy cream, depending on your high-fate needs that day.  Maybe it is a distinction only I would make, but cocoa is a dark, not-too-sweet and intense beverage, suitable as a coffee substitute, while hot chocolate is a dessert in its own right.

And lavender?

I have loved the smell since I was a child and my mother would put a lavender-scented alcohol rub on my back in the hot and sticky summer months in Philadelphia to cool me down.  At that time, the idea of eating it would have been disgusting.  Once out on my own, I planted more than 50 Hidcote lavender plants at my home in Upstate New York and made sachets for everyone for Christmas.  But when a friend in San Francisco took me to a restaurant to try their lavender crème brûlée, my life changed.  I started using it in any course of the meal.  For apps, there is Purple Haze Chèvre by Cypress Grove – a cheese you can actually put together yourself if you have lavender and fennel pollen in your cabinet and a nice chèvre in your fridge.  And you can serve it with a nice sparkling wine – perhaps a prosecco – with a teaspoon of lavender syrup mixed in.  Blueberry lavender soup was another revelation.  Thin slices of lemon with lavender buds under the skin of a chicken – pure heaven!  Let your mind run wild and you can see all the possibilities for this not-often-used but magical flower bud.

So, back to the comfort food du jour: Lamb ragù.  Like most ragùs, this one begins with the “holy trinity” or mirepoix sautéed in extra virgin olive oil.  Once the onion and celery are translucent, the meat is added along with the herbs and spices – a combination of rosemary, lavender buds, thyme, fennel seeds, coriander and cumin. 

Once the meat is browned, the pan is deglazed with wine and reduced to concentrate the flavors.

Depending on how I am serving this – over polenta or on pasta – I sometimes will use more tomato paste to give it a thicker texture.  I have also been adding pitted kalamata olives lately, as well.  I especially like this served over soft white (Venetian) polenta, as it has a coarser texture and a nice bite.  I make this with 2 cups fat-free, low sodium chicken broth, 2 cups water, 1 cup white polenta and then adding about 1 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano just before serving.