Villefranche-sur-mer 2017-2 (chocolat chaud)

Dear Friends,

It is important to always be striving for something.  This year in Villefranche-sur-mer, we are searching for the perfect chocolat chaud.  We are undertaking a very difficult task, but somebody must be willing to sacrifice to find this elusive drink.  The literal translation of chocolat chaud is simply hot chocolate or as we might say hot cocoa.  But in fairness to true chocolat chaud, it cannot be translated that way.  My wife came up with the best translation - liquid mousse.  All you need to do is think of chocolate mousse but in a liquid form.  It must not be too sweet nor too bitter, and it must have a consistency just to the liquid side of mousse.  It is sometimes served with frothed milk and sometimes not.

Until this year I was quite convinced that the best chocolat chaud was at small lunch place at la Darse in Villefranche.  A darse is a marina within a harbor especially one where work can be done on the boats.  The "restaurant" where we get chocolat chaud at la Darse is called La Baleine Joyeuse (the merry whale).  This picture is from the summer.  In the winter there are only a few people.

I apologize that I do not have a good photo of the chocolat chaud from La Baleine Joyeuse, but here is a photo of Jane, me and JP, a french friend enjoying our chocolat chaud there.

If you look closely, you can see that the chocolat chaud in this case is served with frothed milk.  The key is not whether it is served with frothed milk or not, the key is whether it is just the right amount bitter and the right consistency.  The picture below is a chocolat chaud that was good but failed to make it into contention for the best.  This one is from a snack bar in the park outside the Matisse Museum in Nice.  You will note this one does not have frothed milk.  While it failed the taste and consistency test, it does have the beautiful color and sheen necessary for a great chocolat chaud.

We have tried the chocolat chaud at Chez Betty on the main street in Villefranche, but while the wonderful character of the bar and its owner, Betty, is fantastic, the chocolat chaud is not in the top tier.  The photo below is at Chez Betty after a hard fought game of pétanque enjoying a chocolat chaud even if not the best.

We also tried the chocolat chaud at the end of a very decadent lunch at the Palm restaurant which is right on the water near the beach.  It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, and we spent about three hours having lunch and watching the world go.  What a decadent and wonderful way to waste time and enjoy life.  Anyway we ended the lunch with chocolat chaud.

It was very good, but it was too bitter (I even added some sugar), and it lacked the thick consistency of liquid mousse.  But on that day in that place life was so good I did not care that it wasn't the best.  However, Jane discovered a great use for this chocolat chaud.  She added a small amount to her noisette (a small espresso with a dab of warm frothed milk on top).  For those of you who like to combine tastes that are wonderful by themselves, you should try this blend.  To me it is simply a waste of good chocolat chaud but this chocolat chaud was not perfect so I went along with Jane's idea.  Jane named her invention "senior blend".  The same name used by some friends for a hot cocoa and coffee mixture they drink on their sailboat.

Jane and I have now confirmed with multiple visits that the best chocolat chaud in the Villefranche-sur-mer area is actually in Beaulieu-sur-mer at the Gran Caffè.  We walk to Beaulieu from time to time for shopping or eating.  The Gran Caffè is about 1.5 miles from our apartment, but I am afraid a 3 mile walk is not sufficient to walk off the calories from one of their chocolat chauds.  

As you can see it comes without frothed milk.  It has the perfect color and sheen, and the taste and texture are incomparable.  The level of bitterness is perfect, just a slight bitter aftertaste accompanying the wonderful dark chocolate flavor.  The texture is the perfect liquid mousse.  It falls off your spoon very slowly in a smooth ooze. 

Two people have told us that we need to go to Angelina in Paris (here) because it has the best chocolat chaud, but I must point out that neither of them has ever had the chocolat chaud at the Gran Caffè in Beaulieu.  The next time we go to Paris, we will certainly try the chocolat chaud at Angelina because we are on the never ending search for the perfect chocolat chaud.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Betsy Prince DeVos

Dear Friends,

Betsy DeVos is another of President-elect Trump's cabinet nominees who is completely unqualified.  There is an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press by Stephen Henderson entitled "Betsy DeVos and the twilight of public education" (here).  It contains all the information you need to demonstrate with facts that Ms. DeVos is not qualified to be Secretary of Education.  I am quoting below one section of the op-ed, but you should read the whole thing.

Unqualified
President-elect Donald Trump has made a number of controversial cabinet nominations already. But none seems more inappropriate, or more contrary to reason, than his choice of DeVos to lead the Department of Education.
DeVos isn’t an educator, or an education leader. She’s not an expert in pedagogy or curriculum or school governance. In fact, she has no relevant credentials or experience for a job setting standards and guiding dollars for the nation’s public schools.
She is, in essence, a lobbyist — someone who has used her extraordinary wealth to influence the conversation about education reform, and to bend that conversation to her ideological convictions despite the dearth of evidence supporting them.
For 20 years, the lobby her family bankrolls has propped up the billion-dollar charter school industry and insulated it from commonsense oversight, even as charter schools repeatedly failed to deliver on their promises to parents and children.
DeVos is a believer, and a powerful influence wielder for the special interest she has championed. But that doesn't make her the right pick to helm an entire arm of the federal government. Wealth should not buy a seat at the head of any policy-making table.
That is true especially in public education — a trust between government and the people that seeks to provide opportunity for those who wouldn’t otherwise have it.

The op-ed also points out the terrible outcomes from the charter schools that she has pushed.  She is not the right person to lead the Department of Education.

There is one additional fact about Betsy DeVos that is interesting.  She is the sister of Erik Prince.  Certainly she should not be held accountable for her brother's actions.  He is the founder of Blackwater, the federal contractor whose employees murdered people in Iraq and who has had many issues with the law.

In any case Betsy DeVos is not qualified to be Secretary of Education.  Please call you Senators and give them your reasons why she should not be confirmed.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Senator Sessions disqualifies himself

Dear Friends,

None of President-elect Trump's cabinet nominees is qualified and each should be rejected on the basis of reasons specific to each nominee.  I want to have several clear and defensible facts to demonstrate why each nominee is not qualified.  I am starting with Senator Sessions as his hearings are scheduled to start Tuesday.

While his hearings to become a federal judge are replete with examples of his racism, I would prefer to use as my facts more recent statements and positions.  There was a great article in The New York Times yesterday (here) entitled: "Jeff Sessions, in his own words" by Matt Apuzzo.  The entire article is a short introduction to a quote of Senator Sessions and then the quote.  They do in fact speak for themselves, but to help me remember I will comment on each.  However, if you are short on time, just read the article and skip the rest of this blog, except for the end where I encourage you to contact your Senators to stop his confirmation.

It is clear that Senator Sessions would give the police much more leeway to use force.  The Justice Department under President Obama has tried hard to use the power it has to be certain that there are consequences to individual policemen and women as well to police departments who use unwarranted force.  If pressure from the Justice Department is removed, we can expect to see more police violence with no accountability.

Senator Sessions loves the Patriot Act, surveillance and warrantless searches.  He believes them all to be constitutional.  He will not act as a block against unconstitutional invasions of our privacy.  In fact, he will give the President-elect cover to do so.

While President Obama has been trying to undo some of the negative effects of mandatory minimum sentences, Senator Sessions has pushed for more incarceration.  He will take us backwards.

Senator Sessions is not just against "illegals", he is against all immigrants.  He does not want our country to have too many people who were not born here.  He has blocked bipartisan immigration reform.  He will deport people more aggressively than President Obama.  Sanctuary cities will be more critical than ever to combat his xenophobia.

Waterboarding is torture under International Law and treaties that we have signed.  The United States has prosecuted people for waterboarding our troops.  Yet Senator Sessions not only believes it is legal, he believes that it works.  Both those positions have been completely debunked.  The natural consequence of his position is that waterboarding can be used by the police domestically.  What kind of Attorney General would ever believe that?

His statement on gay marriage is off the charts wrong and stupid.  "It is not disputable that adopting a same-sex marriage culture undermines and weakens marriage."  This statement could only be made by an idiot or a liar, either way it disqualifies him from being Attorney General.

Senator Sessions has an A+ rating from the NRA.  There is no need to say more.

Senator Sessions opposes the legalization of marijuana.  That by itself does not disqualify him from being Attorney General but his lack of flexibility on this issue could very well destroy the laissez-faire attitude of the Department of Justice towards states that implement their own laws about marijuana use.  His position reflects his overall lack of understanding that times change, and that the Attorney General must use his prosecutorial powers with good judgment and discretion.

If Senator Sessions is confirmed, the United States will have an Attorney General who disagrees with decades of Supreme Court decisions about the separation of church and state.  His statement that the Constitution permits a state to establish a religion is not even in the realm of possibilities considered by any normal interpretation of the Constitution.  How could we rely on him to defend the Constitution's separation of church and state?

When Senator Sessions supports keeping the prison at Guantanamo Bay open, he is supporting ongoing detention without charges or trials and the denial of basic civil and human rights to people who are sent there.  We should never have an Attorney General who supports such unconstitutional positions.

Senator Sessions denies the science of climate change.  The Attorney General should not have an opinion that contradicts facts.  That is not how our justice system works.

Senator Sessions does not agree that flag burning is free speech, but the Supreme Court has said it is.  Therefore, as Attorney General he is obligated to follow that determination.  He wants a Constitutional Amendment saying that flag burning is not free speech.  The question is how will he enforce the law until that amendment gets passed which is not likely to happen.

You will note that none of the above quotes was openly racist nor does my discussion imply that Senator Sessions is racist.  We know from his many prior statements and actions that he racist.  Of course, that alone should disqualify him.

Please call your Senators and give them some concrete reasons why you believe Senator Sessions should not be confirmed.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal