Chez Natasha

Next to writing, recording and talking people’s ears off about music, listening to music has to be one of my favourite things to do. Following musical trends is not my bag, although wondering why things ever were trendy is. Besides my daily dose of French retro I’ve been listening to Nicola Conte, anything from the Easy Tempo series, chewy disco, eighties techno and some Christmas music. It’s all about sitting on a trusty, comfy sofa. I don’t even own a sofa, that must be it.

I remember a long time ago saying that when I got older, jazz would be part of my life. I started listening to jazz when I was 13 with my best friend at the time. Her father had an enormous jazz collection. Back then, we were into pop and new wave, but every once in a while we’d put on things that were teenager-friendly enough like Manhattan Transfer or hard bebop we would make fun of. Our initiation included Miles Davis (we could take it), Keith Jarrett (we had to hear the story of how he walked off stage because someone wasn’t quiet enough in the front row from her mom over and over), and Sarah Vaughn, a live concert in Winnipeg, Canada taped from the radio.

The first time I heard about Marcolini chocolates was from my business partners in Brussels. It wasn’t the usual ‘oh look, chocolates’, it was ‘oh yes, Marcolini chocolate, I love that stuff!’ For Belgians to get that excited about chocolate, it had to be good. On another trip down to Brussels, I decided to stay an extra day and go shopping as well as pay a visit to this famous chocolate store. Small, quiet and near a posh part of town, I walked in and looked around. “Would like to try some?” a woman said to me. I went for a small dark square of something crunchy. It was brilliant. I bought a special box with more than, oh, 20 kinds for a mere EUR 13,50. What’s the big deal? Master chocolate maker Pierre Marcolini imports his own cocoa beans from around the world and makes chocolate from scratch. It does not have that creamy, sugary quality of other chocolates; this stuff taste like chocolate first and the subtle flavours added to it, after. There’s even a store in Japan.

Since this brillance is not yet sold in the Netherlands (if I had the money, I would open a shop), I have another reason to go down to Brussels. OK, there is a store in Antwerp, which is closer.