Roses and Hot Chocolate

May
I tempt you?

Hot Chocolate?
More whipped cream,
you say?

A spoonful
of sugar?

Another cube of sugar?
A glass of water too?

Milk on the side?
Marbled Guglhupf?
Later, you say?

A Heart of Roses
For all!

*

Hot Chocolate
Memories of Childhood Past

I had the hot chocolate image in petto since I visited my mother the weekend before last, and I wanted to post it before it got redundant. While I rarely drink it nowadays, the fragrance wafting from a freshly brewed cup of hot chocolate has a Proustian effect on me, evoking times of childhood past. My mother used to serve us children bowls of hot chocolate for breakfast. We loved to drop chunks of good bread into it, filling the dish to the rim. Watching us while we were trying to push the bread with the spoon deeper into the bowl, my mother used to observe, with a wry smile, "Not even a cat treading on it with all four paws could get any more bread in there!"

I can still imagine myself sitting there, my short legs dangling from the kitchen bench, the sun caressing the bleached wood kitchen table. I am slowly spooning up one heavenly tasting bit of chocolate soaked bread after the next, all the while looking out into the world through the kitchen window, full of expectation, trusting that the still young day would bring me nothing but good.

Photographs:
1 - Lavazza poster in front of the Vienna Opera House
2 - Hot Chocolate at Cafe' Prenninger, Ried im Innkreis
3, 4 - Cafe' Diglas, Wollzeile
5 - Private, from my mother in law's collection
6 - Seen yesterday at one of the most creative florists
here in Vienna - have to search for the name