The first sip of cocoa makes me cry. I wasn't expecting that. It tasted so strongly of home, and of a simple sort of peace that's hard to remember in stressful times. The cinnamon and cloves, the smoothness of real milk and the richness of real cocoa powder - it tasted of late nights with a novel on the sofa, and lazy winter breakfasts in slippers and bathrobe.

It's nearly October break, and a few sunrises and sunsets will bring me back to that blue-grey house. I haven't missed it so keenly as I did last year, my first fall away from home. Then suddenly a taste of chocolate makes something pang inside my heart...

Making the cocoa was so meditative, alone in the night kitchen - boiling the water, measuring the spices by eye instead of with spoons, watching the color of the liquid lighten as I poured the milk into the cocoa-sugar mixture. Steam rose slowly above the surface, and I traced whirlpools with the ladle. It was past midnight, though I won't say how far.