Hi,
ever since I have seen the film Chocolat I felt like trying some
things with Cocoa beans.
I finally found a source that has raw and roasted beans.
What next?

As to finding the right information with google, I typically end up
with way too much about chocolate, but not about what to do with beans,
so if you have some keywords/pointers for me that
make searching bearable I'd be more than happy.

I assume it is probably easier to work with the roasted beans, or is it like
with coffee, that they get stale quickly after roasting?

I am interested in hot chocolate with chilli (what chilli, which proportions?),
mixing with espresso beans in an
espresso machine (was mentioned on alt.coffee) and other fun
things to do with them (icecream?). I guess I will not attempt to make chocolate,
that seems to be a bit out of my league in terms of effort and machinery required.

thx
afx