A couple months ago, I was gearing up for another normal Saturday afternoon photoshoot. By normal: I’d already gotten help lugging the table (that roughly 95% of my chocolate photos are staged on) next to a window, and I’d already unearthed at least half a dozen potential photo subjects (not knowing yet which 2-3 would make the final cut, because it would all depend on my mood in the next hour.)

My sister was looking out the window and asked something along the lines of, “Didn’t you say you wanted a grasshopper for pictures?”

Who me? Ok, yes me. I distinctly recall saying that. Although I’m pretty sure I was only 75% serious. (At one point I was getting rather desperate for new photo props and apparently I was even open to the unusual and alarming and unexplained.)

Our grasshoppers are no joke. They’re not small and certainly not the type of darling grasshopper that one would try to catch in their hands. They’re uh, slightly larger, with flashy orange-red spiracles, and when they’re agitated they can rub their wings together (or whatever it is they do to make that noise; I try not too get too close to them) so loudly it sounds like a rattlesnake. Or so I imagine. I also make a point not to get too close to rattlesnakes.  (But I’ve seen Youtube videos.)

Probably not two minutes later, my dad appears at the window holding up the grasshopper my sister had spotted.  It was perched on the edge of a sieve. “Did anybody need a grasshopper?”

GAME ON.

Me: “Sam, grab the camera!!!”
My brother: “What?!”
Me: “Grab the camera!! I have to get the chocolate before the grasshopper flies away!”

The first chocolate (out of the ones I’d unearthed) that remotely matched a grasshopper was my Cacaosuyo bar, which I snatched up and dashed outside with.  (No, I didn’t invite the grasshopper in. I may bring in burrs and prickly cacti for photos, but one must draw the line somewhere.) There was no time to find a dreamy setting or backdrop because the grasshopper was NOT planning on sticking around for long, so we found the first available spot to prop up a bar of chocolate. The grasshopper was gently nudged off the sieve onto the wrapper. It immediately wanted to go elsewhere, so for a few brief seconds, my dad’s official title was grasshopper wrangler, my brother was very temporarily back to being my photographer, and I was back to shaking my head at myself over the odd things I decide ought to make an appearance in a chocolate photo.

Now I wonder, whenever I see a grasshopper in the yard, if it is THE grasshopper and it is looking at me and thinking, “SHE MADE ME POSE NEXT TO CHOCOLATE AND SHE DIDN’T EVEN OFFER ME ANY! THE NERVE!” Well, not really.

That grasshopper probably went back to eating the shrubbery without a second thought, while I continued on with my photoshoot that day and ended up photographing Land (Dark Malt – Honduras), Georgia Ramon (Raspberry Rose), a Milka Oreo tower (photo here), and Moonstruck (Mayan Milk).

Cacaosuyo is made in Peru; this bar won a 2016 Bronze International Chocolate Award and a Gold Peru Chocolate Award.  I purchased mine via Cocoa Runners after reading multiple glowing Cacaosuyo reviews on Instagram written by Sharon Terenzi (aka The Chocolate Journalist).

It is a two ingredient bar (cacao from the Piura region, and sugar).   Two ingredients is all it takes to craft a delicious dark chocolate worthy of multiple awards and high praise.

Not sure if anybody wants me to get their hands on any of their chocolate anymore (out of fear of what I’ll decide to photograph it with).

Hey, does anyone know if wild iguanas can be taught to stop and smile for the camera?