Bugs and Chocolate

The chocolate is progressing fantastically, I think?  I fermented the cacao beans and now they are mostly dry and I am shelling them.  As I read about fermentation, the recommendations ranged from 2-8 days, which I did not find very helpful.  The first day not much happened, the fourth day the beans smelled terrible, the fifth day we started to make progress and I stopped fermentation on the 6th day.   The fifth day the beans still smelled bad but there was also a chocolaty undertone.  Rebecca described it most aptly:  'It smells like chocolate and shrimp." The next day it didn't smell anymore so I figured it was done.

I then dried the beans in our little toaster oven and outside in the sun.  The next step is TBD.

In other news, before we left Colorado Rebecca would scream when she saw any bug...a little fruit fly would scare her.  This worried me and Andrea a bit since we knew that there are a lot of big bugs in Costa Rica.  Rebecca has actually done great with the bugs, she isn't terrified and either ignores them or thinks that they are pretty (a nice change from shrieking in terror).

The other night Rebecca was brushing her teeth and she shrieked.  Andrea and I went into the bathroom to see what had happened...there was a giant flying beetle that came in and flew right by her head.  It was about 2 inches long and an inch wide.  Luckily, one of Rebecca's plastic dinosaurs was there to defend her.