Fluffy Hot Chocolate

Michael smiled this week. His first real smile — not gas, not reflex, not the accidental arrangement of facial muscles that newborns do that makes grandmothers claim they're smiling when they're actually processing milk. This was a real smile. Kayla was holding him and I was standing at the stove making grits and I said, "Good morning, Michael Devon Brooks," and he looked at me and his face opened up and he smiled. At me. At the sound of my voice. At the smell of the grits. At something only a seven-week-old baby can see that the rest of us are too old and too serious to notice.

I stopped stirring the grits. You don't stop stirring grits — that is a rule, a fundamental law, a commandment that Hattie Pearl inscribed on my soul at age ten. But I stopped. Because my great-grandson smiled at me for the first time and the grits can wait. Everything can wait. A baby's first smile is the only emergency I will ever set down a spoon for.

Kayla saw it. She was smiling too — the mother smile, the smile that says "my baby is a genius because he smiled at seven weeks, which is early, which is advanced, which confirms that he is the smartest baby ever born." Every mother believes this. Every mother is right. Every baby is the smartest baby. The smartness is not measured in weeks. It's measured in the smile.

The Saturday kitchen mornings have become sacred. Kayla brings Michael. Devon goes wherever Devon goes (the gym, I think, or Target, which is where men go when their wives send them away). Michael sits in the carrier on the table and watches us cook. He watches the spoon move. He watches the steam rise. He watches me the way I watched Hattie Pearl — not understanding yet, but absorbing. The kitchen is teaching him. The heat, the smell, the sound of oil in the skillet, the rhythm of a spoon against a pot. He is seven weeks old and he is already being taught that the kitchen is where life happens. The kitchen is where the family gathers. The kitchen is where you go when you need to be held, even if the holding is just the smell of something cooking.

Made shrimp and grits for the Saturday morning. Michael watched. He didn't eat — he won't eat solid food for months. But he watched, and the watching is the beginning, and the beginning is everything.

Now go on and feed somebody.

The shrimp and grits were for me and Kayla — Michael just watched, the way all of us start out watching before we understand. But after we ate, after Devon came back from wherever Devon goes, I made a pot of hot chocolate and we sat at the table and nobody looked at a phone and Michael slept in his carrier and that was the whole morning, right there. This fluffy hot chocolate is what I reach for when the food is done and the sitting begins, and on a morning like that one, the sitting is the whole point.

Prep Time: 5 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 15 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 cups whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 oz good-quality semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup heavy whipping cream (for topping)
1 tablespoon powdered sugar (for whipped topping)
Pinch of cinnamon or cocoa powder for dusting (optional)

Instructions

Whip the topping. In a cold bowl, beat 1 cup heavy whipping cream and 1 tablespoon powdered sugar with a hand mixer or whisk until soft, fluffy peaks form. Set aside in the refrigerator while you make the cocoa.
Warm the milk. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the whole milk, 1/2 cup heavy cream, cocoa powder, granulated sugar, and salt. Whisk together and heat until steaming and just beginning to simmer. Do not boil.
Melt the chocolate. Remove the pan from heat and add the chopped chocolate. Let it sit for 30 seconds, then whisk steadily until the chocolate is fully melted and the mixture is smooth and glossy.
Add vanilla. Stir in the vanilla extract. Taste and adjust sweetness if needed.
Froth if desired. For extra fluffiness, use an immersion blender or a milk frother to whip the hot chocolate in the pot for 20–30 seconds until lightly foamy.
Serve. Ladle into mugs and spoon a generous mound of whipped cream on top. Dust lightly with cinnamon or cocoa powder. Serve immediately and sit down — wherever you are, stay there a while.

Nutrition (per serving)

Fluffy Hot Chocolate — Because Saturday Mornings Are for Slowing Down