I am often puzzled that my brain is able to recall certain moments in time and fit them into a story after visualizing a familiar picture. This is what happened again on Wednesday at the United Community Corporation’s “Winter Wonderland” event that took place at Westside Community Center. When I entered the senior room around 2.30pm for the advertised “sip and paint” evening, most of the approximately forty chairs were already taken by anticipating invitees. I immediately noticed a completed winter themed painting positioned on an easel to the right of the room. In front of each chair were blank canvases with a pencil outline of a mug. Makeshift palettes with brightly colored paints arranged in little puddles on plastic plates were already prepared on the trestle tables that were joined together to make a large open square where the instructor could guide the group. Each art station had three paint brushes of different sizes sitting to the right of each setting. After about five minutes I joined the group and listened carefully as the instructor stated that the completed picture was there only as a guide and that we were allowed to create our own painting. By the time I started to paint the red mug and fill in its surface with brown color at the beginning of the art exercise, I could feel emotions rising in the room coming from the original creator as well as the participants, evoking feelings that had probably been submerged for years.

I was taken back to my childhood when my grandmother would make “chocolate tea” from scratch. I witnessed her on a number of occasions going through the process of beating the parched cocoa beans in a wooden mortar until they became a paste, and then rolling them into balls until they dried. I later learned that the process was even longer than what I saw her doing because the beans had to be washed after they were broken from the pods and then they were laid out in the sun for days until they were golden brown. My grandmother’s chocolate was well known all over Georgia Road especially among family members and I believe I even recall people referring to the product as Miss Nellie’s Chocolate. While there were other older women making chocolate at the time, Ma’s had a distinct taste especially on Sunday mornings before church.

Many decades after migrating to the United States I had forgotten everything about my grandmother’s natural chocolate. I started to drink processed versions like Quick and Swiss Miss as well as the varieties that I would get from my workplace cafeterias. There was nothing special about those memories until I experienced an afternoon with Frederick. It was sometime around 2004 when I lived in Decatur, Georgia that I visited the International House of Pancakes on Claremont Road for breakfast with my older son. The flamboyant waiter who introduced himself as Frederick prepared a cup of hot chocolate for me in a way that made an impression that would last for a lifetime. As he delivered the mug to me, I remember that the whipped cream he added was more than usual and it was generously sprinkled with cinnamon. His kind gesture made such an impact on me that I not only returned his smile but I thanked him with a decent tip.

It really does not matter if Frederick’s chocolate was as natural as my grandmother’s or if he made it in a few minutes. What truly mattered was the thought and the care that he placed in making what would have otherwise been a regular cup of hot chocolate. That experience that he shared with me over a simple meal is the only reason why I remembered his name on Wednesday while I was painting.