You could be forgiven if you didn’t know that today, December 16th is “National Chocolate Covered Anything Day“.
Luckily, I was informed of this fact in a press release from Emily’s Chocolates, or it would have passed me by altogether.
But if there’s one thing that annoys me, it’s pointless “… Days” dreamt up by people who either have too much time on their hands or just want to promote something. Even if this particular day weren’t simply a poor attempt to get people to buy chocolate, I’m not convinced that “chocolate covered anything” is necessarily a good thing.
To demonstrate my point, I decided to cover the first thing that came to hand in delicious milk chocolate and see if it made it more tasty…
The result of this experiment was one irretrievably damaged 500Gb hard drive, one broken tooth, and a lot of wasted chocolate. Not what I had hoped for.
Oh well. It’s a good job that tomorrow is “International Buy Dom A New Hard Drive and Pay For Emergency Dental Work Day”, or I’d be in serious trouble.
Hmm. So what can I say about this. Chocolate “kissing mistletoe”…
Well, the chocolate’s nice. It’s that standard, smooth, glossy, 40% Hotel Chocolat milk chocolate. I think we’ve exhausted most of the adjectives that could be used to describe this chocolate already. So I’ll just stick with “it’s very nice”.
But there is a deeper philosophical question that needs to be answered here.
Just what are you meant to do with “chocolate kissing mistletoe”…?
Of course, traditionally you are meant to lure your prey loved one underneath a sprig of mistletoe for a kiss, but would you really want to do the same with a piece of milk chocolate? And will it even stay in place when you try to staple it to the ceiling above the desk in your office? Or are you simply meant to push a piece into your victim loved one’s mouth before giving them a quick snog? These are fundamental questions that need to be answered!
Then of course we have the small matter that mistletoe is poisonous. I am assuming the chocolate version is at least slightly less toxic, as it’s probably not going to go down so well with your target sweetheart if they end up writhing in pain on the floor.
Luckily for you, in the name of “science”, I ate all ten of the chocolates myself and suffered no adverse side effects. And people wonder why I’m still single…
Like Ashleigh and Marie, my friend Jacqueline is a seasoned overseas traveler as well as an accomplished artist, businesswoman, parent and translator who has kindly taken pity on me and brought back some Belgian chocolate she considered a standout during her holiday there.
It looked like a beautifully wrapped gift that’s often seen on American TV but not in my real life until it slowly revealed itself to be in a much plainer box – not that it’s what’s on the outside that counts.
There were three layers of chocolates inside; a very generous selection of white, milk (28% cocoa solids), dark (52%) and bitter (77%). This thin cardboard box was looking more like a treasure chest to my greedy eyes.
And yet… and yet, even after eating at least eight of them, I found them a bit ‘sameish’, for want of a better descriptor. Just to clarify this, I kept eating a few more the next day and the day after that to see if I could pinpoint why my reaction was such a fussy one – I’m nothing if not persistent about such important matters.
The conclusion I reached was that the chocolate itself was clearly very good but the flavour combinations didn’t provide any revelations or surprises. Sure it’s obvious that the Belgians love themselves a hazelnut or two but to be honest, there’s a limit to how many permutations a chocolatier can come up with. The examples I tried included Praline With A Whole Hazelnut (done with white, milk and dark chocolates), Crunchy Hazelnut Praline, Ganache and Praline (milk and dark), Praline With Honey and Smooth Hazelnut Praline. Adding some walnut or almond praline chocolates just reinforced the same-sameness of the experience. Even having a couple of coffee and praline fillings didn’t work as a flavour departure.
The one chocolate I had that really stood out was ‘Knossos’, a dark chocolate with a distinct and deliciously complementary flavour of tea within the ganache inside. This really could be in a box all on its own. Granted too the selection is based on seasonal availability of ingredients, so it was both tantalizing and disappointing to see Gianjula Orange, Marzipan, Cinnamon Praline and Liquid Butter Caramel listed in the assortment brochure but not found in the box.
Therefore, maybe I’ll keep from announcing an offhand ‘take-em-or-leave-em’ response due to my continued puzzlement as to why hazelnuts are the bees knees in the European chocolate industry and due to not having the more intriguing combinations available.
Writing about chocolate naturally led to reading about chocolate. In this case, The Lady Of The House found “The Chocolate Snowman Murders”, by JoAnna Carl, at the local library.
This seems to be one of a series, so I have the disadvantage of starting at about book #8. The cover proclaims, in large happy letters, “With Tasty Chocolate Trivia!”, so I was all excited, hoping that amongst the Miss Marbles, I’d find some weird and wonderful facts.
The story, like all in the series, is set in the (fictional) town of Warner Pier on the shore of Lake Michigan. And yes, there are a few sidebars and snippets of chocolate trivia.
What struck me most though was the names of the characters. I really don’t know if the author is taking the mickey or not. She loves “CamelCase” (so called by software developers and internet hackers, BecauseCamelCaseHasHumpsInTheMiddle), so we have characters with surnames like TenHuis, VanDam and VanWinkle-Snow. The event around which activities centre is the Winter Festival: WinterFest. The name-silliness gets worse when we are introduced to Dolly Jolly, but it sank to all-time depths when Jerry Cherry appeared. One or two silly names in a sitting is OK – eccentric, understandable, even true to life. But a book full of these names over and over does grate a little.
So what about the chocolate? The main character is Lee McKinney, who works for the boutique TenHuis Chocolade. She stumbles into an illicit romance, ancient treachery, lust and revenge, strange characters, a people-rescue pipeline, a slimy reporter – you name it, we’ve got it! Chocolate comes to the rescue when used as a weapon, and we get a nice tidy wrap-up in the last few pages.
We do get a few treats along the way – a discourse on the Aztecs using cacao as money (one wonders about inflation), a little on the legend of Montezuma, and descriptions of chocolates and truffles. Four trivia snippets appear periodically between chapters. I’d been hoping for more, but I suppose four aint bad.
They are quite United States focussed – as for that matter is the whole book, where some of the language might be normal in the US but is a little strange elsewhere. Who, in normal conversation, would ever describe themselves as “a peon”? I had to look it up. It means a person of low status or who does unskilled work, a drudge. There were other examples as well.
It is an entertaining read, with little intellectual effort required. But its also a bit too cute for my taste, the mystery is all a bit convenient, and the silly names tend to irritate. I’ll score it 3 out of 5.
