Comfort writing food

Right now, I'm finishing the revisions of my novel, which is called Traveling Angels. I feel like I am caught in a hallucination. I work ten hours a day, and when I'm not working, I'm thinking about the work or I'm emailing or calling other writer friends to ask them if they also are feeling like hurling themselves off a bridge. (Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. It depends where they are in the writing.)

But in these tough writing days, what a girl needs is comfort, and lots of it, and one way is with food. Chocolate, of course, is always the key, at least for me. I consider it one of the four basic food groups, and this recipe below is fast, easy, and except for the chocolate, really good for you, too. And for those worrying about fitting in their swimsuits, this recipe has practically no calories at all (not that anyone looking for comfort food cares about that!)

I'm a kamikaze cook--I don't really measure and I leave a mess in my wake, but here are the basics.

Comfort chocolate pudding

Half a bag of really good semi-sweet chocolate

2 cups of soy milk

3 tablespoons of arrowroot (it's a natural thickener)

Cinnamon to taste (I like a LOT)

Vanilla to taste, or even better, almond or orange extract

1/3 cup maple syrup (also to taste.)

You put everything in a pan and heat it up, stir, taste, add whatever you like. Bring to a boil and it will thicken, then put in the fridge and in two hours, bliss.