Hot Chocolate

To my dad, hot chocolate wasn’t a postprandial treat, to be sipped in winter by the fire. He drank it with dinner, between bites of salt and sour, whatever the season. Making tsokolate, as we call it, is an art: He takes a batidor—a wooden tool like a honey dipper, only larger and more ornate, and a cousin to the Mexican molinillo—clasps the handle between his palms, and rubs his hands so it whirls back and forth, whipping the tsokolate and bringing it to a froth. (His most prized batidor h