Stories & Articles Archives – The Chocolate Website

Jun06 0

I’ve discovered quite a lot of fun things printed on chocolate packaging lately. Some are quotes. Some are silly. Some are insightful. Some have made me laugh out loud. In short, my chocolate wrappers are making me chuckle. I thought I’d share a few with you.

First off, when I was about to open my Hedgehog in the Fog (white chocolate with bergamot and black pepper) bar by Only Child Chocolate….

My Chocolate Wrappers Are Making Me chocolate -Only Child Chocolate Still Life Photo

….I found: “You don’t have to share, we won’t tell your mom.” Hilarious.

My Chocolate Wrappers are Making Me Chuckle - Only Child Chocolate

(For the record, I DID share with my mom.) But: good to know.

Seen on my Potomac Nibs wrapper: “This chocolate is handcrafted to be savored. Take your time; enjoy.”

My Chocolate Wrappers are Making Me Chuckle - Potomac Chocolate

Took my time. Enjoyed.

Letterpress Mint had this to say: “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.” -Benjamin Franklin

My Chocolate Wrappers are Making Me Chuckle - Letterpress Chocolate

(Benjamin Franklin was apparently quite witty. I did a search; what was supposed to be a quick search to pick my favorite Benjamin Franklin turned into 10 minutes of reading practically a hundred quotes…and the realization I can’t pick just one.)

Next up, look what was hiding on the bottom of my Boho Mint Crunch bar: “You can almost hear the crunch.”

My Chocolate Wrappers are Making Me Chuckle - Boho Chocolate

A bar so crunchy you can almost hear the crunch just by looking at it. What a novelty!

It was impossible to miss the “Flip the world right side up” on my Madecasse Honey Crystal bar:

My Chocolate Wrappers are Making Me Chuckle - Madecasse Chocolate

(A recipe or directions on how to do that were not included.) (But presumably a good start would be eating this chocolate….?!)

Ranger 70% Peru says: “Eat good chocolate.”

My Chocolate Wrappers are Making Me Chuckle - Ranger Chocolate

Obviously I do because, well…see all the chocolate bars above!

I’m still chuckling over the back of my Moonstruck Milk Mayan Bar months after opening it. “It is widely held that the Mayans’ love for chocolate was so strong they fought over cacao beans. Perhaps that is why Moonstruck Milk Chocolate Mayan is so alluring. Sneak a bite whenever possible. Appear innocent at all costs. Replenish your stash often.”

My Chocolate Wrappers are Making Me Chuckle - Moonstruck Chocolate

I’m still working on appearing innocent at all costs (apparently I don’t have much of a poker face) but I whole-heartedly agree with replenishing your stash with Moonstruck Milk Mayan Bar often. SO. GOOD.

That’s all for now….

Mar17 3

What have I been doing lately? It might have to do with sinking my teeth into my first Raphio and trying to decide how to best capture the elusiveness that is Ritual’s metallic logo.

Because: It’s happened!!! That narrow window of time between December and February (aka chocolate-shipping-weather) FINALLY arrived, when temperatures dip from one hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit in the shade to a chilly 77 degrees (when it is literally time for jackets and socks, and no I’m not crazy, just acclimatized), and I held my breath while the chocolate was en route (after constantly reorganizing, reducing, and revising my wish list).

I’ve got recommendations. The online craft chocolate stores I ordered from (2019) are as follows:

Bar and Cocoa
Location: South Carolina, USA
Shipping Cost: Free shipping (within the USA) for orders over $75 (Yay!)
Product Range: Very impressive (and constantly expanding) See the full list.
Bar From Bar and Cocoa I’m Most Excited to Try: Probably Zotter.
Confession: The Zotter bar is already photographed and tasted. Wow. I’m now officially adding the caramel milk to the “if I ever get a chance i want THAT one again” list.

Caputo’s Market & Deli
Location: Utah, USA
Shipping Cost: Chocolate ships free!! (Clarification: This applies to the USA only and you may run into a fee for warm weather packaging during the summer months, but Caputo’s has confirmed there is no need to wait for cooler weather. They package chocolate according to the receiver’s temperature, and offer a warm weather guarantee. (So everyone’s chocolate arrives safe and sound!)
Product Range: I’d always considered Caputo’s to have the best selection of any U.S. based online store, although Bar and Cocoa may have caught up. (I didn’t do a side-by-side comparison.)
Bar From Caputo’s I’m Most Excited To Try: That’s hard. Ritual Vanilla maybe. Also Fruition Browned Butter. Oh and definitely Letterpress Mint. (Obviously it’s hard to decide. And obviously I’ve completely abandoned my rule of one bar per maker. I “blame” it entirely on everybody who makes irresistible inclusion bars.)

The Meadow
Location: Oregon, USA
Shipping Cost: Free shipping (within the USA) for orders over $100
(Which I couldn’t take advantage of, unfortunately.)
Product Range: The selection on their website usually varies pretty widely from month to month / year to year. Due to their location, they can be counted on to carry a nice selection of bars made in Oregon (Ranger, Only Child Chocolate, etc.)
Bar From The Meadow That I’m Most Excited to Try: Castronovo Lemon, without a doubt.

I recommend all three of these stores.

Last but not least, here are two honorable mentions (other online stores that carry a selection of craft chocolates, though I didn’t get to order from them this year):

Chocolopolis
Location: Oregon, USA
Shipping Cost: I can’t comment as I didn’t get to order from Chocoloplis in 2019. (Guess you’ll just have to place an order to find out!)
Product Range: Chocolopolis seems to focus on dark chocolate (both single origin and blends) rather than inclusion bars (although they DO carry some milk chocolate and inclusion bars)
Bar I Would Have Liked to Try the Most: Something by Mission Chocolate. (Admittedly this is partially because of the gorgeous flower-decorated wrappers. But also because of some unique inclusions. Like candied guava.)

Cocoa Runners
Location: UK
Shipping Cost: I believe shipping is free within the UK. Check their website for international shipping rates.
Product Range: They have a great selection of European and Asian chocolates (partially due to their location) as well as bars from other countries.
Bar I Would Have Like to Try the Most: Probably another Dormouse bar. Oh, and TCHO Mint Chip Gelato. (Yes I know TCHO is made in the USA but wouldn’t you know, there is no TCHO at The Maadow or Bar and Cocoa or Caputo’s; I would have had to order it from the U.K!)

What are your favorite online chocolate sources?

Oct27 1

Cacaosuyo Peru Chocolate with Grasshoppe

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 Peru Chocolate Unwrapped

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?

Oct08 0

Exactly two things in this photo were mine. (If you guessed one of them was the chocolate..Taza Toffee Almond & Sea Salt…aka arguably the most important thing in the photo…you’d be correct.) (The second was the vastly less exciting tan mat the almonds are resting on.)

Taza Toffee Almond and Sea Salt Stone Ground Chocolate

So that means I borrowed (with permission):

The blanket off somebody’s bed (Not mine. I’m more of a flower person than a giraffe print person. I know I’m shocking absolutely no one by saying that.)
The basket in my neighbor’s closet
The almonds in the refrigerator (actually I can’t recall if I asked permission before borrowing those…)

This photo is one of the best examples I have of being creative and finding things around you to use for photography. With a little imagination, ‘something old and something new and something borrowed and something spotted like a giraffe’ (yes I kind of re-worked the old saying) will work just fine.

I can think of at least a dozen times I’ve come up with shots that didn’t include any of the flowers or fabric I’ve specifically purchased for my chocolate photography hobby and instead used things already lying around (or growing around), and therefore the accessories ended up being free.

A partial list of items found around the house (both inside and outside) that I have used as photography props are as follows:
(I don’t recommend the cactus unless you’re far more careful at handling them than I am):

Sprigs of flowering bushes and one of my shirts
Golden foil (chocolate wrappers!) formed into little balls + leaves + another one of my shirts
Baby cacti, burrs, & tree branches
Rope and rocks
Rings and scarves
Coffee beans and coffee mug (I believe I may have mentioned my reusable coffee beans on multiple occasions. They’re real troupers; they’ve posed with a myriad of coffee chocolates and survived at least one glitter shower.)
My butterfly wallet and some ribbon
Buttons, spools of thread, and a gift bag
A palm frond hat & zig zag brown paper packing material
Colored pencils and bougainvilleas
A napkin holder and a spare piece of fabric
Playing cards and glitter foam

Taza Toffee Almond Chocolate Alternate Photograph

Oh yes. And tiny little cookies.

In case you’re here for the chocolate instead of the photography prop suggestions:

Taza is a stone-ground bean-to-bar chocolate made in Massachusetts. I’m more familiar with their round discs (my favorite is cinnamon) but the toffee is only available as a rectangle and I’m not picky as to what shape my chocolate is in. 🙂

Stone-ground (read: gritty) chocolate makes good “chomping” bars (something to chow down on rather than melt in your mouth and savor slowly). I enjoyed the mix of chocolate and nuts and toffee; I think this chocolate would be fantastic coarsely chopped and generously added to sugar cookie dough.

May03 0

After hearing things like “purchased on Cocoa Runners” & “Cocoa Runners has it” over & over again, I took a tiny peek at their website awhile back. The rumors about their fantastic selection of craft chocolate were not at all exaggerated. Still, I all but dismissed Cocoa Runners as being an option for me because they are based in the UK.

Cocoa Runners Order

Being in the UK is perfectly lovely, except I’m not anywhere remotely near the UK and all my chocolate has to come through the U.S. for shipping reasons. And last I checked, chocolate still melts in transit if great care isn’t taken.

So I purposely didn’t spend much time on Cocoa Runners and practically pretended they didn’t exist, until one day, quite by accident, it came to my attention that Cocoa Runners was carrying Mirzam chocolate.

I’m actually a little at a loss to explain why I snapped when Mirzam was in stock, although I believe it had more than a little to do with the allure of a chocolate made IN DUBAI and Mirzam’s gorgeous mould.

It was time for a proper-look see through the Cocoa Runners website. Let’s just say my first dream list had to be *severely* pared down to keep it real! Part of my criteria: Choosing bars from makers that I hadn’t tried anything else from before. Also: Choosing bars that weren’t (the last I knew) available on the other U.S. sites I purchase from (more on those in a later post).

After deliberating at length for days (whether to even place the order and, if so, which bars would make the cut) I finally decided on the following:

Cocoa Runners Duffys Duffy’s Venezuela Ocumare Milk 55%
This bar was an Academy of Chocolate Gold Winner in 2013.
Duffy’s keeps popping up here and there as one of the top U.K. chocolate makers.

Cocoa Runners Mirzam
Mirzam Chocolate Makers 62% Dark Chocolate with Rose
I think I already made myself clear on why I picked this one. (Made in Dubai!) (Gorgeous mould!)

Cocoa Runners Georgia Ramon Georgia Ramon Raspberry & Rose
This is a new-to-me maker I just started hearing about.
And I wanted a white chocolate to balance things out (I know quite a few white chocolate lovers).

Cocoa Runners Solkiki
Solkiki Ecuador Los Rios 69%
Solkiki seems to be very popular in the U.K for their vegan milk chocolate. I came so close to choosing one of their milk chocolate bars but thought dark might have a better chance of making it without melting. (Maybe I’m just being silly thinking dark chocolate melts a tad slower than milk chocolate?!)

Cocoa Runners Land Chocolate Land Malt Dark Honduras
I picked this due to its simplistic packaging design. I haven’t heard much regarding this bar itself.

Cocoa Runners Cacaosuyo
Cacaosuyo Piura Select 70%
Sharon Terenzi (The Chocolate Journalist) often praises Cacaosuyo chocolate; I wanted to try one of their bars for myself!

Cocoa Runners The Chocolate Tree Coconut The Chocolate Tree Coconut
Because I haven’t yet (that I can recall) tasted a chocolate made in Scotland, and because I love coconut.

Right away I hit a snag by providing the wrong shipping address by mistake, which sent me flying to set up a phone call before Cocoa Runners closed. Thankfully a very nice lady (Emma I think she said her name was) promised to sort it all out and in no time at all my order was on its way (to the correct address).

Then I held my breath for a few weeks as the package made its long journey (involving three continents!) to me. I was still holding my breath when I opened the package. Too close to a heater, or too long in a delivery truck and I might have ended up with a very expensive lump of Du-Mi-Geo-Sol-La-Ca-Cho chocolate pudding (that’s all of the brands mixed together, in case that threw you for a loop).

Thankfully, I’m extremely pleased to report that all the bars look perfect (none of them are misshapen). I haven’t opened any of these bars yet to see exactly how the chocolate fared inside, but at least the outsides are photo-worthy and the insides are still intact enough to taste (and hopefully better than just intact).

My advice for anyone debating on whether to order internationally from Cocoa Runners:

#1. Do it. Their selection is incredible, their customer service is top notch, and Royal Mail is faster than I thought it would be.
#2. Do it in in February. Yes, I know that is ~~really sweet~~ not very nice of me of me to inform you in May! (If you live in a cool climate not *too* far away from the UK, it would probably be safe to do it almost any time of the year.)

Sep18 0

Just had to share…

Recently I was listening to an episode of The Slow Melt chocolate podcast where the host Simran Sethi interviews Sam Maruta, co-founder of Marou Chocolate (bean-to-bar chocolate made in Vietnam).

It was a very informative and entertaining episode, and close to the end it made me laugh out loud. Sam was asked (and I’m paraphrasing here) if there was anything the general chocolate-eating public should know and he said: “Maybe don’t eat too much of it. It’s good, but there are other food groups. And you also need protein.”

BREAKING NEWS ALERT: There are food groups other than chocolate. (I’m trying to get over the shock.)

On a side note, the bar being tasted during the podcast was Dak Lak. There are just two Marou bars I had photographed but not shared yet and I thought “wouldn’t it be a neat coincidence if one of them was Dak Lak?” Lo and behold…. One of them was:

Marou Chocolate Dak Lak Vietnam

Sep13 0

Today is September 13th.
Today is a Big Day.
And you’re thinking…..oooookay.
“It’s Wednesday.
It’s not a holiday.
Maybe I’m forgetting something?!”

Yes. You are. September 13th happens to be INTERNATIONAL CHOCOLATE DAY.

This is not to be confused with National Chocolate Day (October 28th) or Every-Day-is-Chocolate-Day (Jan 1st – Dec 31st) (yes I made that last one up).

No doubt chocolate lovers around the world have big plans. (I know I do!)

If part of YOUR big plans are trying new chocolates, I’ve got just the one for you:

Millcreek Cacao Roasters Blackberry

This is Millcreek Cacao Roasters in Blackberry.

If I had to pick one adjective, I’d have to go with superb.

If I could pick a few more, I’d go with fudgy, creamy, fruity, & tangy.

This bar checked all my dark chocolate boxes; not bitter/astringent, very, very well conched (so creamy!), with a little taste of fruit included.

It’s made from scratch (ok, fine, bean to bar) (make that FARM to bar) in Utah. To read more, go to: http://www.millcreekcacao.com

It’s quite amazing how much craft chocolate is made in Utah. (I don’t really have a list, but as of a few years ago, I’m certain Utah wouldn’t have made the list of the top 25 places that I think it would be fun to travel to. Now Utah would rank somewhere in the top 10.) 🙂

Have a great, chocolate-filled day!

Save

Jun24 0

Typically, each of my chocolate photoshoots (which usually take place on Saturday afternoons) net between 4-8 photos. My goal is a minimum of two shots of each chocolate (wrapped) and one shot unwrapped (providing the
chocolate didn’t melt in transit, and also provided the mold the maker used was unique enough).

Every time, I find myself saving a few “outtake” photos that are just too good to delete, and going through those now I found a rather accurate picture-by-picture portrayal of the “behind the scenes of a chocolate photoshoot”.

True, if I fast-forwarded to the end, there are photos like this:

Pump Street Bakery Ecuador 60% Dark Milk Chocolate

(Pictured: Pump Street Bakery – Ecuador 60% Dark Milk) (Due to ordering it in the winter and thanks to Caputo’s stellar packaging, this bar arrived practically pristine!)

But during the entire process, lots of stuff happens.

Things get broken.

99.9% of the time, this candle was used to tack down one of the four corners of the foam mat backdrops I use for 99.9% of my pictures. The other 0.1% of the time it actually got to be in the photo itself. Then one day it got a little too close to the edge of the table and well… It’s gone now. (Though if I would have thought there was a creative way to showcase glass shards and chocolate together I probably would have kept it…)

Half the outdoors comes indoors with me.

Behind The Scenes of a Chocolate Photoshoot - Venezuelan National Tree

Armed with clippers (and sometimes a basket or a tray), I often can be seen snipping this tree or trimming that bush and bringing in flowers, blooms, and branches. (Apparently I’m not very particular, because I’ve also brought in cactus, berries that may or may not have been poisonous, and an invasive vine*. I think the purple-tinted burr bushes may be next.) A few weeks ago some glossy yellow-green neem pods caught my eye and when coming back inside my comment was something along the lines of, “I didn’t know how many sprigs I would need… So I brought back the whole tree.”

My photography set-up gets hijacked.

While the white background and camera are out, I get asked if it would be possible to work in a few pictures of arduino parts. (Yes, I realize asking nicely doesn’t exactly equal hijacking, but hijacking sounds more dramatic, and I am known for being ~~a little~~ dramatic.) Sometimes a mini arduino photoshoot includes the meticulous process of taping everything down with double-sided tape. On the plus side, one can be meticulous with such things without worrying about them melting (unlike my subjects)!

Then there are the hijinks.

Because apparently it’s funny to come in with whatever one happens to be carrying at the time and stick it in the shot to see how I react. This particular time it was a pair of pliers. Other times anything from a phone to a tongue have suddenly photo-bombed my chocolate.

At the end of the day?

Behind The Scenes of a Chocolate Photoshoot - End of Day

It’s a mess. Everything ends up jumbled together in my hurry to get as much done as possible, and, as always, get.it.done.before.the.chocolate.melts. It’s a colorful interesting mess, but a mess nonetheless.

There’s even more that goes on behind the scenes of a chocolate photoshoot. The photo of someone (very dramatically) “passed out” on my floor after trying their first Lindt truffle comes to mind (they really liked it!), but I have a feeling I’d be in more than a little ‘trouble’ if I posted that photo, so…use your imagination!

*That invasive vine I mentioned just happens to be in the Pump Street Bakery photo above. I thought it was rather pretty.

Save

Mar25 2

You heard me. Everyone wants me to have a meltdown. In fact, everyone I know wouldn’t mind if I had a meltdown every single week.

But it is not as bad as it sounds. By meltdown, they don’t mean a hissy fit or dissolving into tears. Instead, it means they’re waiting for me to literally melt down something brown and sweet and…yes, you knew this was going to involve chocolate somehow.

(Suddenly I am reminded of Rilla of Ingleside and her supposed overuse of italics. I always thought her use of italics was spot on.)

In short, me having a meltdown is code for me making fudge. Or chocolate mint thins. Or truffles. Naturally, there is photo evidence of my latest meltdown.

Everyone Wants Me to Have a Meltdown

Peanut butter truffles. Yes, they are having a very bad hair day (or whatever you say when truffles start sweating because they don’t like the temperature of the ~~photography studio~~ place where I take photos).

The initial plan was to keep all the truffles. After all, it was a four day weekend (plenty of time for plenty of truffles) and there are some definite peanut-butter-lovers in my family (including the dog, who gets to lick the empty jar). Yet somehow two truffles here and two truffles there went off to new homes and before I knew it there were ten missing. To any concerned parties who thought we were shorted on account of my unapologetic sharing tendencies, we STILL had plenty. (But yes, I will make you more. On your birthday. Which I cannot be fooled into thinking is in March.)

Want to have your own meltdown? I have some tips:

Always melt more chocolate than you think you’re going to need. Because you can make all sorts of things with the leftovers.
Never let anybody watch you handle the chocolate because they will start marveling how it is possible for one person to leave chocolate on so many surfaces.
Also never let anyone know you are making anything because they will show up with puppy dog eyes begging for chunks of chocolate or truffle centers.
Always make sure there is room in the freezer/fridge BEFORE standing there with messy hands and a full sized pizza pan laden with truffles, wondering where you’re going to put it.
And last but not least…either portion off truffles so everyone has their own container, or insist on being around to divvy them up.

‘Cause otherwise they’re gone.

Ps. The peanut butter truffle recipe is from Use Real Butter.

Save

Feb19 0

“Waaaaaaait just one second,” I can hear you saying. “Chocolate Recycling? How is that even possible?! Hasn’t she ever heard there are no recipes for leftover chocolate?” Yep. I have. (Despite Googling just now and finding that to be a total untruth.) But hear me out. Part of my recycling story doesn’t involve chocolate itself, and part of my story involves the extra chocolate I melt with the express purpose of having enough leftover to “recycle” into my current favorite “I-made-it-myself” chocolate: Mint Thins

Chocolate Recycling - Homemade Mint Thins

These are incredibly simple and incredibly delicious. They’re admittedly not the prettiest chocolates in the world, but I could round up at least a dozen people who would testify to the fact that the taste was good enough to make up for what these chocolates lack in the looks department.

Today’s post is brought to you today by the letter E (for Easy) and the number 2 (for the amount of ingredients needed).

Dec20 0

By now you’ve probably noticed a theme. I like BRIGHT. I like flowers. And I like chocolate.

Pictured: Variqui Chocolateria mini bars in milk, dark, and macadamia.

Some friends dropped by while I was photographing these. It was the perfect opportunity to get more opinions; macadamia ended up being the favorite.

It’s been so rainy lately… so I picked a nice sunshine-y photo. With chocolate. Of course.

Dec16 0

I was getting ready to tell you about Thanksgiving. (All the way back in November. Although it’s the middle of December. Apparently it’s taken me that long to recover.)

But first, in honor of Chocolate Covered Anything Day, I made this little collage of, well, chocolate covered everything:

Nontraditional Thanksgiving Foods & Chocolate Covered Everything

All pictures are my own. All opinions are also my own:

Chocolate Covered Bacon: Fun for something different.
Chocolate Covered Oreos: Yes. Oh yes. Just don’t try this at home. You might eat too many oreos. (I didn’t, but I can see how it could happen quite easily!)
Chocolate Covered Potato Chips: This tasted about the same as the bacon, just not as chewy.
Chocolate Covered Coconut: Delicious.
Chocolate Covered Celery: Nope. Don’t do it. (I knew it wouldn’t like it. I did it for the picture, not because I thought it would be incredibly tasty or the next big craze.)
Chocolate Covered Apples: Also Delicious
Chocolate Covered Pineapple: Very Delicious

Now back to Thanksgiving….

…which usually brings to mind foods like turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and that stuff that some people cook in the turkey (and some people don’t) that some people call stuffing and some people call dressing. My family was confusing the issue by calling it both. Next year we should combine the two and call it “stressing”. 🙂

Category: Stories & Articles

My Chocolate Wrappers Are Making Me Chuckle

Online Craft Chocolate Stores (2019)

The Grasshopper Crashed My Photoshoot

Photography Props Are All Around You

Captivated by Cocoa Runners

There Are Other Food Groups?!

Today is a Big Day

Behind The Scenes of a Chocolate Photoshoot

Everyone Wants Me to Have a Meltdown

Want to have your own meltdown? I have some tips:

Chocolate Recycling (Mint Thins!)

Variqui Chocolateria Chocolate

Nontraditional Thanksgiving Foods