Do you ever find yourself saying “hey, I would really like to have a little Chocolate Eclipse tonight. You look up the place that sells Chocolate Eclipse, (in my town it’s a guy called Bouley), and you find out that dinner with the Chocolate Eclipse is going to run you over a hundred dollars each. Even if I went so far as to leave Ferdinand and my husband at home, that kind of entertainment expense is just not in my weekly budget. It’s not in my monthly budget. The kind of places I go to sell jelly beans out of a vending machine. I couldn’t get the eclipse out of my mind. After going to the jelly bean place for breakfast with my friend Kellie, I remembered that Mr. B has a bakery as well, and it was within walking distance from where we were. I decided to make something really cheap for dinner tonight, calzones with extra sauce that I have in the freezer and some grated mozzarella cheese. I could serve the calzones with spinach salad, and A CHOCOLATE ECLIPSE! It cost me $5.25. I bought two so that we could eat one immediately. Not much comes close to a best friend and sinfully rich cake. But you know what? If I have to be really honest, thank goodness I didn’t pay all that money for the eclipse; as good as I know it had been when it was made, it wasn’t today’s and probably not even yesterday’s, which is fine for $5.25, but I would have had to make a scene and send it back if it was in the restaurant and I hate embarassing sitsuations like that. You see? One more reason to cook at home.

To make your calzones, use one package of yeast and one cup of wrist temperature water for three cups of flour and a teaspoon of salt. Mix it all together in the food processor for 30 seconds and then let it rise in a warmish place for an hour. Punch down and divide into individual size balls. Roll them out with a rolling pin, and fill them with whatever you like. Bake in an oven as hot as it will go for about ten minutes, or when they are nicely browned.

For your spinach salad, use baby spinach, some chopped egg, some roasted peppers, some black olives, chopped artichoke hearts, and a beautiful olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

Buy the best looking thing in the case at your bakery for dessert, and serve it on a good looking plate with low lighting.