tasty experiment

do a google search for "cognac au chocolat" and most of your hits will be blissful raves of local restaurant Cremant. I'd heard about it via the blogosphere and been itching to go for months. My parents insisted that we have at least one special dinner out and I made reservations here. We had foie gras, jacques st. coquille, hanger steak with pommes frites, even one of their eponymous sparkling wines.

For dessert, I serendipitously chose the cognac au chocolat, a sort of smooth, melted-pudding drink of the two titular ingredients and - the waitress said - condensed milk. I spent tonight dabbling over the double boiler with sweetened condensed milk, dark chocolate, and a bottle of cognac. I ended up adding regular milk to the mixture to leaven the consistency, but still used too much cognac (not that Cass and I really minded as we sipped out on the patio tonight - mmmmm).

We are having friends for dinner tomorrow, so I'm going to give it another try, this time with a 50/50 milk and condensed milk and a blend of dark and milk chocolate. I'll report back if/when I think I've got a suitable interpretation figured out. Until then, I'll just have to keep my nose to the culinary grindstone. (Who says work ethic is dead?)