Hazelnut Hot Chocolate

Mid-July. Diego and I went to the Sangre de Cristos. Three nights. Just the two of us. The kind of trip we used to do when he was twelve and that we have not done in two years. We left Tuesday morning before dawn and we drove south to the Wheeler Peak wilderness above Taos. We parked at the trailhead at noon. We hiked seven miles up to a basin lake where we have camped before, and we set up at four, and we ate the foil-pack dinner I had pre-built in Denver — chicken thighs, potatoes, peppers, onions, butter, garlic, a heavy hand of green chile — over a fire that Diego built without help, and which he built better than I would have built it.

The conversation on a backpacking trip is not the conversation in a kitchen. Backpacking conversation happens in fragments — a sentence as you cross a creek, two sentences while you are setting up a tent, a longer thought while you are looking at a fire, then ninety seconds of silence because you are watching a chipmunk. I have learned that the best conversations of fatherhood happen in this format. You do not push. You wait. The kid talks when he wants to talk. Your job is to be present for the talking when it comes.

Wednesday night Diego talked. We had eaten our foil packs. The fire was low. He was sitting on a log with his hands wrapped around a cup of cocoa. He said, "Dad, can I ask you something." I said, "Of course." He said, "Were you scared, your senior year." I said, "Of what." He said, "Of any of it. The pressure. The expectations. People watching. Knowing it was the last year. All of it." I thought about it. I said, "Yeah. I was scared." He said, "Of what specifically." I said, "I was scared I was going to play badly and disappoint people who had believed in me. I was scared I was going to play well and not get a scholarship. I was scared of getting hurt. I was scared of not getting hurt and of having nothing else to fall back on. I was scared of all of it." Diego said, "What did you do about it." I said, "I made a list." He said, "A list of what." I said, "A list of the things I could control. The list was short. I controlled how I prepared. I controlled my attitude. I controlled how I treated my teammates. I did not control the rest. I told myself that every morning. Some mornings I believed it. Some mornings I did not. The mornings I did not believe it, I prayed." He said, "Did you actually pray." I said, "Yeah. I actually prayed." He said, "Does it work." I said, "It is not a transaction. You are not putting in a quarter and getting candy. The praying is a way of practicing the trust that you are not in charge. The trust is what works."

He sat with that for a while. The fire popped. He said, "I am scared." I said, "I know you are." He said, "I do not want to let everyone down." I said, "Diego, you cannot let everyone down. Not with effort. Effort is something you control. Outcome is something the universe decides. If you give the effort, you have done your job. If the outcome breaks the wrong way, that is between God and the universe, and you and I will eat brisket and watch film and figure out the next thing." He said, "What if it breaks the right way." I said, "Then we go win the championship." He laughed. I laughed. The fire was lower. We let it die. We crawled into our tents.

Thursday we hiked to the summit ridge — not the peak itself, which would have been a longer day, but a ridge that looked at the peak across a basin. We sat there for an hour. We did not talk. The light moved over the rocks. A red-tailed hawk circled below us, which is one of the strange privileges of being above the tree line — you look down at a bird that you usually look up at. Diego said, "Dad, this is the best." I said, "Yeah." That was the conversation. That was the day.

Friday morning we hiked out. Five hours back to the car. We drove home through Taos, stopped at a little place I have stopped at for thirty years, ate a sopapilla each, drove on. Diego slept in the passenger seat for two hours. I drove with the windows down and the radio off and I listened to my son breathe in the seat next to me. He is seventeen. He is six-foot-one. He is going to be a college football player at a Division One school in fourteen months. He is also still, in a way that has nothing to do with size, my boy. Both of those things are true at the same time. I am going to keep both of them in my head for as long as I can.

We got home Friday night at nine. Lisa met us at the door and hugged Diego for forty seconds. Sofia hugged him for thirty. The twins hugged him for ten and then asked what he had brought them, and he had brought them a small painted rock from a roadside stand outside Taos for each of them, which they treated as a major artifact. We ate leftover brisket from the fridge and we went to bed. The road bends. Feed your people. The game is won at the table. The game is also won in the Sangre de Cristos at four in the afternoon next to a basin lake with your son.

Diego was drinking a cup of instant cocoa when he finally asked me the question that had been sitting between us for two days — the one about fear, and senior year, and not wanting to let people down. I have thought about that cup a hundred times since we got home. This hazelnut hot chocolate is what I make now when I want to carry some of that night back into the kitchen: richer than the packet stuff, warm in the same way a low fire is warm, the kind of thing you wrap both hands around and hold. Make it at home after a long day, or build it into your camp kit next time. Either way, make sure somebody is sitting across the fire from you.

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 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons hazelnut spread (such as Nutella)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar (adjust to taste)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of fine sea salt
Whipped cream or marshmallows, for topping (optional)
Crushed toasted hazelnuts, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

Heat the milk. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the milk and heavy cream. Warm until steaming but not boiling, stirring occasionally — about 4 to 5 minutes.
Add the chocolate base. Whisk in the chopped bittersweet chocolate, cocoa powder, hazelnut spread, and sugar. Continue whisking over medium-low heat until the chocolate is fully melted and the mixture is smooth and uniform, about 3 to 4 minutes.
Finish and season. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract and a pinch of sea salt. Taste and adjust sweetness if needed.
Pour and serve. Ladle into mugs. Top with whipped cream or marshmallows if using, and a small handful of crushed toasted hazelnuts. Serve immediately — both hands around the cup.

Nutrition (per serving)

Hazelnut Hot Chocolate — The Cup Diego Was Holding When He Finally Talked