Full Circle Associates

ChocoNancy Shows Her ChocoLove
Originally uploaded by cogdogblog

Alan Levine, aka Cogdog, took this funny picture of me while we were at a “tweet-up” dinner at EdMedia 09 in Hawaii in June.  I really enjoyed the dinner, new friends, conversation, and of course the chocolate cake.

Consider this a gratuitously off topic Fourth of July post!

I made a really great chocolate Guinness cake last night, and I was trying to figure out how to weave it in with the rambly theme of my blog. After all, this isn’t a food blog, as much as I love food.

I had tweeted that I was going to make this cake in celebration of our finally naming “the book,” and I was amazed how many people wanted the recipe. I kept sending the recipe url to people who tweeted in reply.

It is interesting what captures our attention, what stimulates us to want to experiment.

Is it the chocolate? The Guinness? The cake? Cooking? Food? In any case, the interest prompted me to blog about the cake. Oh, and the cake is really good – though I’d suggest using a little less butter. I added some grated unsweetened coconut and I’d suggest adding some chopped, roasted pecans as well. I substituted mascarpone for the cream cheese in the icing (because that’s what I had on hand) which makes a subtler icing. I think I’d prefer the cream cheese!

What gets us moving beyond our customary habits and patterns?

Recently many people have complained they have not been able to hear me properly on VOiP or telephone calls. I swapped headsets, but with no discernible result. (My telephone is also VOiP.) When I talked on my phone with out headsets, sometimes it made things better, sometimes it didn’t. My son has some fancy-pants headsets he uses as a gamer, and I was going to try them, thinking perhaps the mic plug on my computer was the problem and that might help me figure it out. But I just procrastinated finding a definitive solution. There were too many other things on my to do list.

Then in the mail a box arrives with a Polycom Communicator 100s, courtesy of a conference call company I use. It is not something I would have bought myself (pricey) and it is like a speaker phone, so intuitively I would have thought headsets would be better. But because it was here, in front of me, I tried it. And wow, it worked pretty darn well with my initial test calls.

The cake? Someone blogged about it (and darn, I can’t remember where I saw it) and my curiosity was piqued. I love chocolate and my husband enjoys his Guinness. But if the idea had not shown up in front of my, in my business, I would have never sought it out.

In our busy lives, sometimes it takes a ping, a tweet, a box in the mail, to pull us out of our traditional trajectories and get us to try something new. And what a wonderful and productive, chocolately surprise that can be.

What brought your head up for a new view today?

This post from the sparky, smart and witty Vicki Scholtz is the best chuckle of the day for me. This post is a response to participation in the recent e/Merge 2008 which I blogged about last week.

Carnivorous Cow | Repassionated
“Maybe that’s it,” Keitu admitted. “Maybe it was exactly that notion that resonated – a kind of Woodstocky feel only with better hair and cooler clothes, and far nicer toys. But that sense of idealism, of belief, of… of passion! Somehow, although I let it go, it wouldn’t let me go!”

Bob chuckled. “You’re talking about Howard sitting barefooted under his plum tree! I wonder how many fermented plums you’ve been eating…!”

“Well,” Keitu admitted, “it makes a change from all the chocolate. Hey!” she looked up. “Do you think I could be the secret love child of Nancy White and Howard Rheingold?”

We now divert from our normal online-blah-blah-blah and take a reverent moment to acknowledge that it is Chocolate Day! Want a little chocolate fun? Take the Is It Beer or Chocolate? quiz (I did terribly at 51%). Look at some of the interesting links from Chris Hodge. Think about the political implications of your chocolate. The health benefits.  Chocolate as art and inclusion. (Image to the right — Chocolate hat © Ann de Gersem, photo C. Baele)

And yes, even a link to a story about online communities, support and of course, chocolate. Ah, so this post isn’t so frivolous after all.

Hat tip to Chris for pointing out this critically important day to all chocoholics.

Signed

Choconancy

ME ME ME ME!!!! Darn, I wish I could have gotten in on this one….Wanted: Women to eat chocolate for a year – CNN.com.

Poking my head up to say I have a string of unfinished blog posts but have not yet caught up from travel. So… settle for a chocolate story in the interim, eh?