Holiday Tour Day 12: The Author Stack and Cedar's
This chocolate be hummin'. And so should you!
I’d like to take a moment to thank the two beautiful people who have recently become the first two Cacao Deities here on The Cacao Muse. What is a Cacao Deity, you ask?
A Cacao Deity is an entity of great wisdom, insight, and longevity—especially now during the Tour, because signing up for an annual TCM membership bestows upon you not only a lighter fee, but the equivalent of immortal readership. Once the Tour ends, all new Cacao Deities will have to renew their pledge of divinity each year. Just please keep this knowledge to yourself and don’t share it with any of our presidential candidates.
To subscribe free, or to subscribe paid! That is the eternal question.
There’s an ongoing dialogue—with some pretty strong opinions—here on Substack about paid subscriptions. This invariably brings up the multifaceted and at-times thorny question of what it means to earn a living as a writer. Those of us who do depend on the written word to pay our rent and put chocolate food on the table for our families, we appreciate having a platform that enables us to do so and forge direct relationships with our readers, unlike certain (cough Amazon) other (cough Apple) unnamed (cough Google Kobo Barnes & Noble Ingram etc) platforms.
More importantly, we belong to communities. Ecosystems. No matter how solitary, every writer has their own innate ecosystem. Kind of like a cacao grove.
TCM Holiday Tour Day 12 pairing:
THE AUTHOR STACK and CEDAR’S
I will forever associate Russell Nohelty with my favorite woody plants on the planet: trees. Early on in my Substack journey, I came across the Author Ecosystems that he developed with his business partner Monica Leonelle. Apparently I’m a forest, which makes sense, because I love trees, I love forests from the temperate to the tropical, and I love people and parties and networking and communities and tribes. And chocolate, so I’m very likely a Cacao Grove ecosystem to boot (Russell can you add secondary ecosystems to your main ones??)
The Author Ecosystem quiz is super fun to take, and once you find out what sort of environment you resonate with, you can start sliding down the appropriate rabbit holes to hone your craft as well as your business according to your goals. And Russell and Monica have plenty of material to explore and learn from—they make National Park maps look like DUPLO® instructions.
Russell also knows Kickstarter like the back of his hand, and he writes fiction—you can read the first book in his Godsverse Chronicles series for free.
Please welcome Russell Nohelty and The Author Stack.
The Cacao Muse: Russell, a warm welcome to you! You have done so much to help authors and writers here on Substack, so it’s our pleasure to highlight your work. Tell us about The Author Stack.
Russell Nohelty: The Author Stack sits at the intersection of craft and commerce, helping writers build more sustainable businesses that allow them to thrive while creating work that lights them up inside. We strive to give authors agency in a world that too often seems intent on stripping it away from them.
Birgitte: I love the built-in reference to Substack… The Author STACK. I also love your Author Ecosystem, um, system, which I just talked about. And we know how hard you work—we see you in emails, on your Substack, and in Notes. It’s great to have people like you sharing their expertise and experience. As you say, we writers should be valued and supported!
TCM: Ok enough about all the work talk already! Let’s talk about our favorite thing to talk about. Chocolate!
Russell Nohelty: I’ve been thinking a lot about Spain recently. There is this churros and chocolate place called Chocolatería San Ginés in Madrid that is probably my favorite singular chocolate experience. I’ve had a lot of great chocolate all over the world, but that is the one that sticks out to me, so whatever chocolate they served is my favorite.
Birgitte: Ah, sí, España. Did you know I lived in Madrid for a year? That’s where I learned my Spanish… I had to, for my International Relations program that was all in Spanish. My accent is now Colombian, but that’s another story for another chocolate time. You probably know that churros are THE antidote to hangovers. In Madrid, people have dinner at 10pm, go out dancing all night, and at 5am or so, when you can barely move anymore, you go get churros y chocolate. Any amount of alcohol you might have had throughout the night, magically dissolves with these heavenly cinnamon pastry sticks dipped in thick, rich chocolate.
Darn it. I really shouldn’t have written that. Now I’m ravenous and wondering why I haven’t gone to an all-night dance party in so long.
Anyhow. I couldn’t get to Spain on time for this feature, but I did find something you might find unique and interesting. Spain has a long and entangled history with the cultures of the Middle East. I’m not quite sure how this happened, but if you mix one of the most well-known, beloved, traditional foods of the Middle East (which, it seems, originated in Syria in the 13th century1) with one of the most well-known, beloved, traditional foods of Mesoamerica, you get this:
Reader: Umm…
Birgitte: Whatever you’re thinking, that’s not what it is. Look again real close:
Reader: What is that in the…?? OMG. Is that a…
Boss Cat: Meowrrr… purr… love hummus… purr!
Birgitte: Ok let’s make it a little easier:
Reader: You’re kidding. I’ve never seen such a thing.
Birgitte: Yes! Chocolate hummus! It’s a thing! Apparently. Wanna try it?
Chocolate: Cedar’s Dark Chocolate Hummus
Percentage: Unlisted
Origin: Unlisted (yes, I know, very suspect)
Ingredients: Steamed chickpeas, organic cane sugar, sunflower oil, olive oil, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, sea salt, nisin (a natural preservative)
Price: $3.79
Tasting Notes: This tastes like… well, chocolate hummus. My brain took a little while to wrap itself around it. I wanted it to taste like hummus. But then I wanted chocolate. You literally taste both. At the same time. Like, at once. You don’t know whether to slather it on a s’mores stack or dip a rosemary cracker in it. I need some churros.
TCM: While minds are being blown, we’d like to continue with the interview please. Is there anything you’d like to ask the experts?
Russell: Why is it so common to see child and slave labor in the chocolate industry? I understand capitalism only works if there is an underclass to exploit, but it’s not great.
Birgitte: Because Big Chocolate likes its profits. That’s the blunt answer. The answer you’ll hear at their trade shows and read in their press releases is that the dynamics in the field are complicated and they’re aware of the problem and they thought their suppliers promised them all the beans are certified and they’re committed to improving the livelihoods of their cacao farmers by 2005 2008 2010 2020 2025 20502 or whenever they get around to being tired of the billions they’re making and… Here’s a fun look at three scenarios related to chocolate capitalism.
TCM: We can imagine what you’ll say but… is there anything about the industry that you’d change if you could?
Russell: As I said above, the part about child slavery and general exploitation of the working poor. Solving that would be neato burrito.
Birgitte: Neato burrito it would be indeed. 🌯 And you know of course it would be a chocolate burrito. With chocolate hummus.
I am now going to retreat into my Author Forest and… oh wait, Forests don’t retreat. They grow networks of roots and mycelia and spawn other Forests and… they finally publish their posts. Ok ok I’m done, hitting ‘publish’ now…
Make sure you subscribe to The Author Stack! And The Cacao Muse!
COMING UP! DAY 13 of the TCM HOLIDAY TOUR
Russell’s churros gave me the wanderlust.
There are these two gentlemen here on Substack who have been running around the world, visiting awesome places, somehow having the time to write about them all, and making the rest of us look like couch potatoes. Well, at least we’re couch potatoes with some damn great chocolate. Still. I love to travel.
Maybe they’ll start a new Alaskan cruise line dedicated 100% to chocolate. Just imagine… chocolate themed cabins, huge chocolate fountains on deck, chocolate sculpting classes for the kids, chocolate hummus with blue corn chips as appetizer…
Source: New Lines Magazine, viewed online December 11 at https://newlinesmag.com/newsletter/the-true-origins-of-hummus/
Given Big Chocolate’s stellar record of keeping their promises, we all know what’s going to (not) happen in 2025, so why don’t we just extend the deadline for them. We don’t want them to feel pressured, oh those poor hard-working executives!
Chocolate hummus!!!!!
Good to see you here, Russell! Who knew we all enjoyed chocolate so much?
I mean, probably most humans knew that.