Some associate San Francisco with Rice-A-Roni, cable cars, and the gay lib movement. I, however, take the shallow route and associate it with fine American chocolate. Between The San Francisco Chocolate Factory and Ghirardelli, San Fran is just about the only city in the contiguous United States that produces decent corporate chocolate. [Note that I said corporate; there are plenty of lovely indie chocolate shops around.]
To wit: Upon her return from the golden state, a colleague presented me with The San Francisco Chocolate Factory's new "Book Lover's Chocolate". The bookshelf-ready packaging evokes an old leather-bound novel (albeit a tiny one, at only 5 inches), and contains rounds of milk chocolate (also available in dark and dark espresso). The schpeel: "Chocolate has been proven to boost brain power, so let our luscious bite sized discs help you devour your new book while pleasing your palate." Uh, okay, whatever you say, Book Chocolate.
But lo, this book chocolate is divine! The disc shape is perfectly contoured for mindless tongue-palate melting (no impatient biting here!), and the flavor is so creamy and rich, they're like little poppable drinking chocolates. I also test-drove the chocolate's promise of enhancing any reading experience, and while they didn't make the oeuvre of Ann Coulter any more digestible, they sure make it more palatable.
I'm a big fan of chocolate-covered nuts: peanuts, cashews, almonds. But not only can they be a big impact on the waistline, the chocolate taste can often overpower the nut taste. But Emerald's new Cocoa Roast Almonds take care of that. It actually has just a dusting of dark chocolate on the almonds, so you can actually taste both the nut and the chocolate at the same time. And because it's dark chocolate, it's better for you (don't go crazy - nuts and chocolate can be good for you in small doses, but you still have to watch the fat and calories).
This is a great addition to the Emerald line, which has come out with a lot of new flavors recently, including Salt & Pepper Cashews (pretty good but way too heavy on the pepper, as many salt & pepper products are), Wasabi Oven-Roasted Peanuts, and Honey Dijon-Glazed Walnuts 'n Cashews.
Who knew gamers -- the ones who hole themselves up in their basements alone with their consoles for weeks at a time -- could be so lovey dovey?
Paul Pape designed these little Mii milk, white, or dark chocolates that come two in a box that's shaped like a console. The figures inside have tiny red hearts to indicate their love. They're totally cute for Valentine's Day, but they are sold out! OH NO! If you're creative enough, I'm sure you could put together something like this, or something even better, for your gamer love.
I used to read Wired mag religiously, in the late 90s and early 00s (I think that's what we're calling this decade, right?). But I don't read it that much anymore. I'll skim through it at the bookstore and if there's an article that grabs my attention I'll read it, but I don't usually buy it. Which is ironic, considering I'm online 22.5 hours a day now, compared to when I read it all the time.
Anyway, Wired co-founder Louis Rossetto is in the news again, and this time it's for chocolate. Rossetto and Timothy Childs have started a chocolate company named Tcho, and the chocolate is now available. The chocolate is still in beta mode, as Rossetto says. Right now you have to order it through the web site and pick it up at their HQ in San Francisco. I'm sure that will change and they'll have mail order, or ordering it next Christmas is going to be really cumbersome for people if they have to travel from the East Coast to pick it up.
I've become sort of the appetizer guy in my family when it comes to Thanksgiving and Christmas. While my sister cooks the main meal, others in the family always offer to bring something over: desserts and other pies, soda, wine, etc. I've been doing appetizers and snacks the past few years, and here are a few tips.
I think appetizers and snacks should be low stress and easy to make/set up. One of the best is a cheese and cracker platter. All you have to do is go to your supermarket and go to the cheese section (you know, the stuff beyond Kraft) and choose several good looking, nice cheeses. I usually go with a cheese nut roll (I've been buying a Port Wine cheese roll that everyone seems to like), a good aged cheddar, and maybe some Boursin. For crackers, it's amazing what is available, and I usually grab several different varieties: pepper crackers, rosemary crackers, and also plain ol' Ritz, which you can't go wrong with. Get a nice platter or tray, put the various cheeses in the middle, each with their own knife, and then spread the crackers all around the edge. Looks great.
Halloween is a time for candy. No matter what you do the rest of the year, how healthy you eat and what diet you follow, Halloween is the day you eat peanut butter cups, jawbreakers, and candy corn. But kids often get treats in their bag that just make them scratch their heads. Here are the ones I remember from my childhood.
1. Apples and bananas. Seriously, I don't want fruit in my bag. What is this, Halloween or a dental convention? Giving fruit to kids on Halloween just screams "I forgot to buy candy and I had this lying around."
As if anyone needs a holiday as an excuse to eat chocolate!
Today is NationalChocolateDay, and I thought that instead of having one post where I mention the day and list some recipes I'd do a bunch of posts that have to do with chocolate the entire day. So expect recipes, facts about the history of chocolate, maybe even some posts on things that you can make out of chocolate. I'll let you know what I find. Tune in throughout the day for more.
Since most of us love chocolate (some like all kinds of chocolate), it would be good to know why we're so addicted to the stuff. Could it be ... bacteria?
Nestle paid for a study in Switzerland that showed that, while everyone has various microbes in their stomachs and intestines, people who crave chocolate seem to have different types of microbes than other people. The study actually took a while to complete because they couldn't find 11 men who didn't like chocolate!
I'm not sure what's more interesting: the fact that people who love chocolate have different types of bacteria in their body, or the fact that we all have trillions of bacteria in our bodies.
As we all know chocolate can cure everything that ails us both physically and mentally, and Chocolate Television covers just about everything: companies that make chocolate, candy expos, chocolate blogs, recipes, and so much more. Viewers can even upload their own chocolate-related videos and other content.
I'd rather see this on my local cable system than the Oxygen network.
It has been amusing for me to watch the popularity of dark chocolate grow. Remember when you were a little kid and Mom would buy the family those bags of Hershey's Miniatures so that everyone in the family could get what they want? In most cases, the bag of Miniatures experiences the "Special Dark Effect" -- the clear plastic bag is empty of all the Krackels, Mr Goodbars, and Milk Chocolates, and the Special Dark sits there until the bloom on it turns it into white chocolate because no one liked dark chocolate. Not in my family, The Special Dark chocolates always went first because I ate them all in one sitting. All the other kids' mouths were smeared over with sickeningly sweet milk chocolate, and i was just...weird.
As an adult now, I am not so into dark chocolate, and I think it has to do with how health-trendy it has become. You see, I am allergic to trendy food, and now that dark chocolate is almost luxury item and it's "hip" to be into 60%, 70%, even 80% cacao chocolates, I am *meh* about it.
Nonetheless, I was willing to give Dove's new line of Origins chocolates a try. The line of chocolate bars and squares are 61% cacao with pure cocoa beans from Ecuador, Ghana or the Dominican Republic. I tried all three, but to be quite honest, I couldn't really tell the difference in flavors. I just sort of expected the Dominican Republic bar, wrapped in paper printed with dark fuschia and flowers, to taste like...berries.
I used to love candy -- anything sweet, for that matter -- and chocolate candy bars were something that I would eat daily. However, in recent years, I haven't been as obsessive about chocolate (I know! Someone is going to have my head for that!) I realize that chocolate now has health benefits, and no doubt, I much prefer the darker varieties of chocolate to milk chocolate, but maybe that's why it's not fun to eat anymore. The naughtiness of chocolate is gone.
For the last two weeks, I have been overdosing on chocolate. Having one candy bar a day to do a bunch of taste tests was some serious overdosage. I will talk about the rest through the week, but for this Sunday afternoon, let's dive into the newest addition to the Three Musketeers family: Three Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate.
Warning: the following story doesn't give you permission to start downing dark chocolate by the case.
As someone who has high blood pressure, I welcome any new news that eating certain types of food can help bring the numbers down. Of course, if I just exercised more I could lose some weight and that would probably take care of 97% of my problem, but in case that doesn't happen, I like hearing news like this. Researchers in Germany have discovered that small portions of dark chocolate might help people who are in the early stages of high blood pressure. 24 women and 20 men, aged 56 to 73, were given both white and dark chocolate over 18 weeks. The white chocolate didn't have much effect at all.
I'd write more but I have to run out to the store and get some dark chocolate.
You ever get in one of the modes where you eat the same snack for days and days and weeks?
That is what's happening with me right now with Planters Chocolate-Covered Cashews. They come in cans now (the bags vanished several months ago). They're big cashews, and the chocolate is delicious too. I have no scientific proof to back this up, but it seems to me that when companies cover their nuts with chocolate, they seem to use bigger nuts. It's especially noticable with whole cashews. Maybe they just seem bigger because they are covered with chocolate, I'm not sure. I just know I'm going through whole cans in one sitting while watching television or reading.
Dark Chocolate Dipped Altoids sounded so good after reading Joe's initial review that I decided to keep an eye out for them while shopping. Target seems to be a veritable gold mine of new and limited edition candies, so it didn't surprise me when I saw a box near the checkout and picked them up.
At least, I thought I saw a box of the candies I was looking for. I didn't discover that I picked up a tin of Dark Chocolate Dipped Cinnamon Altoids instead until I took a closer look at the package later that day. I'm not a big fan of cinnamon candies in general, but I have to admit that the chocolate-coated cinnamon Altoids were pretty addictive. The chocolate was not too sweet and melted fairly easily in my mouth, cutting the normally sharp cinnamon flavor substantially and leaving behind an almost Mexican chocolate-type flavor.
I still haven't had a chance to sample the regular chocolate covered Altoids, but I think I'll be satisfied with my accidental purchase for a while yet.
Wow, I love these.
The world of 
I used to read Wired mag religiously, in the late 90s and early 00s (I think that's what we're calling this decade, right?). But I don't read it that much anymore. I'll skim through it at the bookstore and if there's an article that grabs my attention I'll read it, but I don't usually buy it. Which is ironic, considering I'm online 22.5 hours a day now, compared to when I read it all the time.
I've become sort of the appetizer guy in my family when it comes to Thanksgiving and Christmas. While my sister cooks the main meal, others in the family always offer to bring something over: desserts and other pies, soda, wine, etc. I've been doing appetizers and snacks the past few years, and here are a few tips. 
Halloween is a time for candy. No matter what you do the rest of the year, how healthy you eat and what diet you follow, Halloween is the day you eat peanut butter cups, jawbreakers, and candy corn. But kids often get treats in their bag that just make them scratch their heads. Here are the ones I remember from my childhood.
Since most of us love chocolate (some like 
Warning: the following story doesn't give you permission to start downing dark chocolate by the case.
You ever get in one of the modes where you eat the same snack for days and days and weeks?
DIY Foods: Making homemade sausage
Cakes so amazing they'd be hard to cut into
Fruit juice: An invitation to diabetes?
