I hope you’re still enjoying your chocolate-themed movie parties we suggested last month. Did the chocolate themes pulled from summer blockbusters open your eyes to the ways we can incorporate our favorite treat into all of our passions? I hope so because now we’re going to suggest some chocolate treats to go along with some current and all-time book bestsellers. Only in honor of books taking so much longer to digest than a two-to-three-hour treat on the screen, this time we’re going to make you work for those treats!
Harry Potter
Author: J.K. Rowling Publisher: Scholastic Year First Published: 1997
(J. K. Rowling)
What can be said about J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series that hasn’t already been said? If you’ve yet to read it because you mistakenly believe that it’s just for kids, then I doubt I’ll be able to succeed where all the hype, the critical acclaim, the record-breaking stints at the top of the New York Times Bestsellers List, and the box-office smashes that are the film adaptations have yet to convince you. But still, I can try!
The seven books that make up the crux of the Harry Potter series chronicle a year each in the life of Harry Potter, a British orphan who lives with his cruel aunt, uncle, and cousin at the beginning of the series a few days before his eleventh birthday. Harry’s world turns upside down when he’s told by a rather giant, hairy man that magic exists in this world and that he, Harry, is a wizard—and quite a famous one at that. Harry’s gloomy prospects for his future with an abusive family are shattered as he enrolls in Hogwarts, a secret boarding school of witchcraft and wizardry, and learns magic as well as what it feels like to have true friends.
His happiness at being a part of the magic world is only eclipsed by the reason for his fame and the news of the real reason for his parents’ deaths. His parents were murdered, it turns out, by the most evil wizard in all of history, a wraith-like wizard called Voldemort. By some unknown and thought impossible magic, one-year-old Harry defeated Voldemort without even trying when Voldemort tried to kill him. Now the shadows of Voldemort’s life and legacy, the bigoted views of Voldemort’s still-living followers, and a sense of foreboding dog Harry’s every step through this new world.
In honor of the magic that is the crux of Harry’s world, let’s make some magic cake! Betty Crocker’s got a recipe for a chocolate checkerboard cake. (Recipe) When people ask how you made a cake in that pattern, just tell them it was magic!
Playing For Pizza
Author: John Grisham Publisher: Dell Year First Published: 2007
(John Grisham)
One of the top current paperback fiction bestsellers is one of John Grisham’s relatively rare trips outside of his popular legal dramas. Fans and non-fans of Grisham’s work alike are loving this story about Rick Dockery, a fictional third string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, who blows a critical game for the team, losing them their shot at the Super Bowl. Amidst being cut from the team, he’s also being slapped with a paternity lawsuit that he’s pretty sure is unfounded. When no American team will touch him, Rick takes a position on the Parma Panthers, leaving his life and troubles behind and moving to Italy.
Rick’s got a lot of culture shock ahead of him, but he seems to experience the most difficulty with a couple of other Americans on the Parma team. Can Rick take his new team to the Italian Super Bowl? If a better offer comes knocking, will he even want to? What happens when this tongue-tied-around-women football player meets Livvy Galloway, an American college student studying abroad?
Although pizza actually is more of a metaphor for Italy than an actual vital part of the book, the title alone’s enough to whet your appetite for a slice of Italy. Instead of pepperoni and sausage, though, try some chocolate dessert pizza! The Food Network has got a great recipe for chocolate pizza! (Recipe)
Watchmen
Author: Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
Publisher: DC Comics Year First Published: 1986-1987
(Comic Books)
The only graphic novel (originally a 12-issue limited-run series) on TIME Magazine’s 2005 "All-Time 100 Best English-Language Novels" (yes, novels) list, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen has been a steady seller for DC Comics even since its original 1986-1987 run but recently exploded onto Amazon.com’s Top Ten Bestseller list after a teaser trailer for next year’s film adaptation of the graphic novel hit theatres with this summer’s phenomenal blockbuster The Dark Knight.
So what’s all the fuss about? Watchmen, a comic aimed entirely at adults, is set primarily in an 1980s alternate reality America in which Richard Nixon is still president because Watergate was never uncovered and because he became so popular he was able to overturn the 22nd Constitutional Amendment. What lead to this popularity? The answer is that "God exists. And he’s an American." Thanks to a god-like superbeing called Dr. Manhattan, America annihilated enemy forces in the Vietnam War swiftly and all too easily.
In this world, superheroes have been around since the 1940s, but they’ve all been costumed vigilantes without superpowers—until Dr. Manhattan. Only that doesn’t mean that America still isn’t in the throws of a tense Cold War. If anything, this kind of escalation of weaponry makes the situation all the scarier. Now that the government has outlawed all superheroes except those on their payroll, is there any hope for peace in this other world?
That’s some pretty heavy stuff! So you’re going to need some heavy chocolate cake to be able to stomach it all. Try Pillsbury’s recipe for peanut butter-chocolate chip pound cake! (Recipe) Just be warned that both the book and the cake are best taken in slowly, so as to better savor it all—without the headache or stomachache of ingesting it all at once!
No matter your taste in bestsellers, start thinking about chocolate in terms of the books that tickle your fancy. It’s a fun and delicious way to expand your mental horizons while enjoying the best that chocolate has to offer!
