If you’ve been following the Holiday Tour, you might be thinking, who is this Cacao Muse and who is she to know so much about the chocolate world? Fair question. You should always do your due diligence whenever you invest. Your time, especially. I’ve pulled together a TCM prospectus just for that purpose.
In the world of cacao and chocolate, Time holds just as much value as Money. And Money really did grow on trees, so it tooks its own sweet time.1 Whenever you’re ready to invest a share of your Time (and maybe a cacao bean or two, so I can continue making chocolate writing) in The Cacao Muse, here’s da orange button:
I am the mother and daughter of artists, the carrier of multi-generational creative expression, and a lover of animals. I used to keep a salt water aquarium populated with all manner of local sea life (oh the drama of sea worms and crabs!), raised a dove abandoned on our patio as an egg, gave a summer flounder surfing lessons in Long Island Sound, and kissed a live piranha in South America. My family has had a few cats and currently my mom’s best friend is a Shiba Inu named Sumo.
It was only a matter of time before the universe pulled me to a Substack dedicated to artists and their pets.
TCM Holiday Tour Day 16 pairing:
ART DOGS and CASTRONOVO
This feature is partially my and partially Mike Sowden’s fault. He’s the one who wrote a Note about an exemplary Substack about pets & art by an allegedly mysterious writer.
About a week earlier, I had invited the same mysterious writer to join our Holiday Tour. Unaware of this fact, Mr. Sowden proceeded to post a follow-up Note, to the effect of:
When I hear the words “WE THE PEOPLE DEMAND JUSTICE,” I put on my warrior garb and I ride to the front line. Little did Mr. Sowden know that his wish was already in the works. I am not sure whether the good people of Substack ever responded to him, or whether a second interview is in progress, but given they’ve got plenty on their shoulders, all involved can rest easy knowing the Bailey Interview has been achieved.
The Art Dogs are coming.
This, of course, presents a serious challenge to the hegemonic power established by Boss Cat in this Holiday Tour. Dogs and Cats on the same Tour grounds means war.
Unless of course the Artists intervene.
The ground has begun to tremble—all the rest of us mortals can do is brace for impact.
Please welcome Bailey Richardson and Art Dogs.
The Cacao Muse: A warm welcome to you Bailey and all of the Artists and their Dogs and other pets you’ve brought with you. We might need to go to standing room only! What’s the back story here?
Bailey Richardson: I was an art history student, and I’m still that at heart. My newsletter Art Dogs is a simple way for me to tap into my love for art—to learn a bit more about the lives of artists I admire—and to pet gaze. Once a week, I share a short dispatch introducing readers to the pets—dogs, yes!, but also cats, lizards, marmosets, and more—that lived alongside favorite artists.
Birgitte: Ooh how fun, can you share some right now?
Bailey: So far, some of my subscribers’ favorite editions have been about Kurt Vonnegut’s dog Pumpkin, Félix González-Torres’s cats, who kept him company after his partner passed of AIDs, and Toni Morrison, who I believe named her cat after Zora Neale Hurston.
The posts are ostensibly about these animals, but, as you might expect, often reveal much more about the artists and their work.
Birgitte: I wonder if you’ve ever come across an Artist, or any great historical figure, who had a jaguar as a pet.
[Sound of a deep, drawn-out growl. The ground vibrates.]
Bailey: What’s going on? Wait, where are we going?
Birgitte: Honduras. Not too far from Costa Rica. But tread quietly… you don’t want the Cats to hear us.
[Birgitte peeks through the jungle foliage, motions for Bailey to look on. The Boss Cat and his underlings are standing around a circle of cacao beans. The circle is headed by… a… a Jaguar! Not just any jaguar though. Could it… could it be??]
Bailey and Birgitte exchange glances. They move the massive leaf to the side to take a closer look. It’s… the Jaguar of the Lost City! They’ve run into a secret ritual gathering of Jungle Cacao Cats!!
Birgitte: I can’t believe it. I’ve always dreamed of finding the Lost City, but I never thought I’d actually see it. Do you realize how special this is? Castronovo is known the world over for their elusive chocolate. You can’t get it in grocery stores, not even the high end ones. You have to brave the jungles of New York City to get to Chelsea Market, or type in the secret URL of the Castronovo fortress.2
Oh look! Here’s an inscription carved on the digital walls of Castronovo:
This chocolate bar is a tribute to the Lost City of a vanished ancient civilization, discovered within Honduras’ virgin tropical rainforest. The indigenous people living nearby in the Gracias a Dios region protect the forest and make a sustainable living as harvesters of wild cacao. The cacao is processed in their village and put on hollowed-out tree log canoes, called pipantes, for a two-day voyage upstream to the nearest road. We are the first American craft chocolate maker to make a single-origin chocolate from these remote beans. The chocolate bar has exceptional nutty flavor notes of roasted almonds. It’s our homage to timelessness of this place.
As soon as the Cats leave, you and I will make a beeline for it and taste the chocolate. But we might have to hang here for a while.
TCM: It might indeed be a while. Bailey, what’s your favorite chocolate?
Bailey: My family had a chocolate lab growing up named Godiva. She ate everything. She’d sneak out of our house and find her way downtown to beg strangers for food and sift through the garbage. A true gourmand! So the Godiva brand sits close to my heart.
[Sounds of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor waft through the trees]
Birgitte: Heh, how ironic—a chocolate lab named Godiva, who of course couldn’t eat chocolate. I have to say, Godiva sounds so regal! Wait, what’s that? OMG Rachmaninoff. And Levko!
[How a Russian composer and his dog ended up in the Honduran jungle is a mystery for the ages. Sergei never did figure that one out, but he rolled with it.]
Bailey: It’d be a lie to say that Godiva is the best chocolate I’ve ever tasted though. The best chocolate I’ve ever had was in Taos, New Mexico, at a small shop called Chokola. If you’re ever in town, it’s well worth visiting and doing a tasting.
Birgitte: Taking note. Levko seems to be sniffing around. I think he’s looking for the Cats.
[Sound of fierce paws flying across the terrain, followed by a series of camera shutters going off. Then, a sonic boom]
Birgitte: What was that?
Bailey: The Dogs.
Birgitte: The dogs? What dogs?
Bailey: The Art Dogs.
Birgitte [finally making the connection]: Ohhhh.
[Another dog whizzes past them. This time John Divola gets a better shot]
[The Cats are suddenly silent. Strategically, cunningly silent. As if moved by the spirit of the Jungle, the huge leaves close in to hide them from sight, and the orchids release clouds of plant pheromones to mask the scent of the Cats. A thousand more dogs whizz by. Every single one of them flies right past the ritual circle.]
[Bailey notices something among the trees. She nudges Birgitte.]
Bailey [whispering]: Something distracted the Dogs. I think I know what it is.
[She points to a turtle. All of the dogs have surrounded it, and are sniffing excitedly]
[Suddenly, the leaves part. It’s the Twin Queens. Toni Morrison and Zora. Toni gazes benevolently at Bailey and Birgitte, and gives an approving nod.]
Toni: The Dogs have passed. May the grand tasting ritual of the Lost City begin!
[Zora purrs]
[Birgitte turns back to the ritual circle and gasps.]
Birgitte: Oh no they’ve skinned the Jaguar! No wait that’s impossible. The Jaguar is all powerful. He could take on all those Cats with a swipe of his paw. [Ponders the splayed-out skin of the chocolate bar, then realizes] Oh. Ohh! He shed his packaging. I’ve never seen a bar do that in the wild!
Bailey: That’s wild.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Nabokov is hunting butterflies in a meadow somewhere in Switzerland.
Reader: Why did I need to know this.
Birgitte: Because, Nabokov and butterflies. I mean, who’d ever think?
Nabokov: What you looking at.
Bailey: Wait, it’s standing up.
Birgitte: What?
Bailey: Look! [points through the foliage]
The Great Bar of the Lost City rises. Its front face shimmers in the dappled light of the rainforest. The aroma is unmistakable: wild cacao. The Cats stand frozen in awe.
Queen Toni: It is time. You may now partake of the Taste of Wild Cacao.
Birgitte: Thank you, Queen Toni. We are blessed. [Nudging Bailey]: That’s us. Ready?
Chocolate: The Lost City
Percentage: 72%
Origin: Honduras
Ingredients: Cocoa beans, organic cane sugar, organic cacao butter
Price: $12.00
Tasting Notes: This bar melts on your tongue with the velvety feel of the fur of a jaguar, its sweetness ever so light, just enough to color it and make the wild cacao blossom. Notes of caramel and coffee swirl as the chocolate dissipates, slowly, leisurely, its long tail meandering across your taste buds, leaving a trail you won’t soon forget…
Bailey: Queen Toni, I have a question. Is chocolate actually good for you? Please say yes...
Queen Toni: We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do chocolate. That may be the measure of our lives.3
[Queen Toni and Queen Zora depart as quietly and suddenly as they appeared.]
Birgitte [quietly, to Bailey]: It is good for you. In so many ways. Opens up your palate so flavors of other foods are more intense. Good for your microbiome. Cardiovascular system. Digestion. But it does depend on the chocolate. Commercial candy bars are actually bad for you because of all the sugar, fats and artificial ingredients. What you want is to get as close to pure cacao as you can. Cacao is rich in nutrients, no doubt about that. It’s why I have cacao nibs in my breakfast oatmeal or granola—gives me long-lasting energy for the day.
The Olmecs, Maya, and Aztecs used cacao to heal a variety of ailments, from asthma and headaches to anemia and cancer, and for endurance and fertility.
Some people say a lot of the modern health studies are overblown because they serve the interests of the chocolate industry—see this article from The Guardian that walks through a lot of the nuances. But if you ask me, if it was good for the ancients, it’s good for us. We humans too.
TCM: Our plane is waiting on the tarmac, ladies. Before we go, Bailey, is there anything you’d change about the chocolate sector?
Bailey: I’ve spent a lot of time in Costa Rica, where small batch coffee and chocolate-makers are sprinkled across the country, and easy to visit. The big cacao pods hang on the trees in the rainforests, so close you can walk right up and inspect their wrinkles. I love how personal and how close the production process feels there. I wish we had more proximity to that process here in the US.
Birgitte: Well, we do have Hawai’i… the only state in the US where you can grow cacao. We’re going there in five days!
We had to leave the Art Dogs in the jungle, because they were too excited by Robert Rauschenberg’s turtle. I’m sure he’ll bring them all back when he returns. He has to. Bailey’s Substack would feel empty without them.
COMING UP! DAY 17 of the TCM HOLIDAY TOUR
“The Tao is nowhere to be found. Yet it nourishes and completes all things.”
~ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
“Real chocolate is hard to find. Yet it nourishes and completes all humans.”
~ The Cacao Muse’s version,
Tomorrow, wear simple clothes, and leave all your earthly fears at home, for we venture deep into the Tao of Cacao.
It really did! The ancient people of Mesoamerica used cacao beans as currency. I’ve got a list of things you could buy in an old Maya market for set numbers of cacao beans. They even counterfeited the beans! There’ll be a separate post about cacao as money in the New Year.
Ok, it’s not really that secret but you know, dramatic effect.
An actual Toni Morrison quote… with one wee little edit. I’m sure it’s obvious.
How cool!
I loved the Vonnegut piece on Art Dogs! I also love dogs and Vonnegut, so duh, but I also appreciate this palpable passion from both of you.