Originally, the plan for today was either to tell you about what I put everyone through when sharing my chocolate
(bring a notebook!) or a bright and cheerful chocolate photo I can’t wait to share ’cause it makes me HAPPY. But we  interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcast: There was a brazen chocolate thief at my house Saturday.  Or should I say a brazen chocolate chomper?

(Mantuano Granola – Artisanal Chocolate made in Venezuela)

It is not very hard to leave chocolate unattended on Saturdays.  (Any other day of the week chocolate is safely secured in MY chocolate drawer, which doesn’t even need a KEEP OUT sign because everybody is already well trained to leave it alone.)  (Right now I’m hoarding things like Alter Eco Dark Twist (chocolate with crystallized orange peel) in there.)  On Saturdays, chocolate is strewn on multiple fridge shelves, on the table, and all across the house as I ferry it back and forth to my studio*, either snapping photos or dictating which shots should be snapped if Sam happens to be available. (Sam is my brother, my sometimes-photographer, and, when chocolate disappears, he is generally considered the primary suspect. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten chocolate out, turned my back for two seconds, and find he has somehow managed to carry it off already.  On the plus side, he usually brings it back intact.)

Chocolate was everywhere and the photo-shoot was well underway, resulting in photos like the one above. I unwrapped this bar, temporarily set it aside for additional photos, and…all of the sudden there was a bite out of it.  A big bite out of it. A somebody-was-not-messing-around, definitely-wanted-me-to-notice-there-was-a-bite-out-of-it, bite out of it.  (For the record, I probably would have noticed if someone had even touched it.)

The bite was actually quite telling as to who the culprit was, and I knew my sister’s whereabouts enough to know it wasn’t her, but I grilled her anyway: “Did you steal my chocolate?  Could you go into any detail as to why or why not?”  Her response: “You want me to answer a yes or no question with a paragraph?!” (She’s under the impression that if she asks me something like, “Is this dark chocolate?” that I say something like, “Well, it is darker than the chocolate we had yesterday, but not as dark as the one we had this afternoon” instead of saying “yes” or “no”.  Come to think of it…apparently I am annoying like that.)

Going back to the very unladylike bite in my chocolate:

That bite pretty much ruled out my mom.  (a) The bite is too big.  (b) I don’t think she would have been able to bite out of the middle like that.  (c) She says she doesn’t even like this flavor. (Shocking, I know.  It’s one of my favorites!)

The culprits were narrowed down to two: Sam and my dad.  Both adore milk chocolate.  Neither are against unauthorized bites to see what kind of a reaction they can get out of me. The problem is, when I point-blank made inquiries, all I got were big grins and twinkly eyes out of them. “Me?  Eat your chocolate? Wouldn’t you like to know!”

I know it was one of them.  The question is…which one?  And what am I going to do about it?  There are consequences** for eating my chocolate.

*On my bed, under a window. I’d show you, but you really don’t want to see the chocolate stains on my bedspread.
**Shhh.  There aren’t really consequences, but we don’t want the culprit to know that.