Winter warmth

As I peered over the rim of my paper Dixie cup, steam swirled playfully into my face as if I had charmed it from the cup. My drink was chocolate. Hot chocolate.\nThe only thing between me and the door was a large, stuffed camel. Behind me was a model boat. I was sitting at my first stop on the great hot chocolate crawl: Café et Crepe on Fourth Street. They make their hot chocolate with milk, Ghirardelli chocolate sauce and sometimes a shot of vanilla if it gets too dark. \nI usually think of hot chocolate as a beverage for children or adults with an unnatural aversion to drinking coffee. But it happens to be the signature drink of winter.\nWhen I was a kid, hot chocolate was a post-sledding ritual. After sliding down the same hill over and over again, my brother and I put our blue plastic sleds in the trunk of my dad's hatchback. At home, our hot chocolate came from the microwave. Sometimes the milk got that filmy skin floating on top from being overheated, but the hot ceramic mugs thawed our fingers.\nThe more accurate term for the beverage might be hot cocoa, but saying "cocoa" makes me feel like I'm either being pretentious or addressing a monkey. \nMy goal was to look for hot chocolate around Bloomington in places "off the beaten path." (In case you were wondering, the beaten path is Starbucks.)\nMy journey began on a Saturday morning with an empty stomach. I walked instead of driving between all my destinations in an attempt to work up the proper chill needed to truly appreciate hot chocolate. It was 47 degrees. I'll admit it could've been colder to maximize the hot chocolate effect. In between tasting, I cleansed my palate with a stick of Juicy Fruit.\nBefore Café et Crepe, I had tried to sample the drink at the IU Art Museum Café and Giftshop, but it was closed for winter break. My next stop was Café Ami, a cozy little house on Fourth Street, but it was temporarily closed. My next chocolate attempt was a new place I saw in the phone book called Crystal Parrot on Walnut Street, but it's so new it's not even open yet.\nI don't know what I did to anger the Hot Chocolate Gods, but their wrath was vengeful.\nFinally I arrived at Café et Crepe, where an earnest young man in a bright blue shirt made my desired beverage. He offered to add a flavor shot. He motioned behind the counter to a row of colorful bottles filled with syrups, but the first one read "Praline," a flavor that doesn't appeal to anyone under the age of 60, so I decided to stick with plain cocoa. It tasted like a Civil War re-enactment on a hot summer's day with rifles made of chocolate. Mild and tongue-tingling.\nI wandered to the Scholars Inn Bakehouse on College Avenue, where the atmosphere was lively and Panera-esque. A little girl in a lime green fleece started to cry to her mother because she was too hot. But her mother had just ordered her a hot chocolate.\nThe Bakehouse hot chocolate is made with chocolate syrup and steamed milk. I was surprised when the woman at the counter asked me if I wanted whipped cream. I eagerly said yes. From then on, every time I was offered whipped cream, I accepted. Calories be damned. Floating on top of the chocolate, the cream looked like a rose made out of soap. It tasted like skidding through a candy store on a Razor scooter made of chocolate. Sweet and rich.\nI strolled down to 10th Street to see if they had hot chocolate at Revolution Bike and Bean. I was excited to patronize a business that marries bicycles and hot beverages. The place is 75 percent bike shop and 25 percent espresso bar. The prices for bike repairs are listed on a chalk board right next to the menu for drink prices. It's not a place where you can sit down and drink, but the smell of rubber is invigorating. Bike and Bean's hot chocolate happened to be the cheapest and the tastiest yet, made from powdered Ghirardelli chocolate mix. It tasted like roadtripping from Boston to Philadelphia in a Honda Accord made of chocolate. Robust and exciting.\nThree hot chocolates in a row, though delicious, brought on nausea. I postponed the crawl for the following morning.\nSunday morning was 41 degrees and rainy. I began at The Copper Cup on College Avenue. This particular coffee shop gave me my very first opportunity to sit in a giant purple chair made of Ultrasuede. I almost wished I had something I needed to study. \nAs I sat in my purple chair, drinking my hot chocolate made from milk and chocolate syrup, I suddenly sipped something solid. It was unexpected, but delicious. I immediately removed the lid to see what was floating around in my cup. Chocolate shavings on top. Nice touch. It tasted like drifting down the Mississippi on a raft made of chocolate. Fun and stimulating.\nThe next stop on the hot chocolate crawl was Soma Coffee House just off Kirkwood Avenue. They, too, use powdered Ghirardelli chocolate mix, but the whipped cream has cinnamon in it. I grabbed my drink and crept into the back room where you could hear the rain hitting the windows. I felt at ease sitting with a green lamp to my left, a game of Yahtzee! to my right and my cinnamon whipped cream in hand. It tasted like watching your favorite movie on a couch made of chocolate. Cozy and scrumptious.\nThe last hot chocolate I tried gave me the opportunity to meditate by gazing out on a misty mountain landscape on the front of the box of Swiss Miss in my kitchen. Those little marshmallows never lose their novelty. But if tiny people were drowning in my hot chocolate, I doubt the buoyancy of those miniature marshmallows could save them. \nMy kitchen doesn't have an espresso machine to steam the milk. In fact, I didn't even have milk. The hot chocolate tasted like buying a gumball at 3 a.m. from a truck stop made of chocolate. Gritty, but satisfying.