Chocolate

I adore chocolate. In most forms. The more gourmet, the better. The weirder, the better. I happily fork over 7-9$ for a unique chocolate bar. One bar. I have been known to spend 35$ on chocolate at any one given time. I love it so. I typically tend to hate most American chocolates. You know, the ones you can get at any convenience store. Snickers, Hershey's, and the like. I consider them chocolate imposters. They taste like dirt and they nevver truly satisfy a chocolate craving. The most you get from them is a sugar buzz and a toothache. There are some artisan chocolate companies in America that I search out. One is Vosges Chocolatiers. They are based in Chicago and eating one of their exotic chocolate bars is wonderful experience that engages all of your five senses. They have ingredients in them that range from quirky to just plain weird. For example, they have several bars that have different varieties of sea salt. If you haven't tried chocolate with salt, you are missing out. They use unheard of ingredients like goji berries, wasabi, macha green tea, black sesame seeds, kalamata olives and pasilla chiles. They even have a bar that has applewood bacon and hickory smoked sea salt in it called Mo's Bacon bar. Yes, I said bacon. Before you turn your nose up at it, remember that salty-sweet taste that I touted earlier? Yes, it falls into that category, but with a richness that the other ones just don't have. You must try it at least once in your life. You will be happy that you did.

I also have a love affair going with British chocolates, but that will be it's own seperate post. Yes, it deserves one all its own.