Confessions from a Chocolate Connoisseur

I am, despite the headline for this post, quite a sucker for healthy food. My diet consists mostly of clean meat (fish, chicken, turkey etc - organic if possible), vegetables, olives, nuts, green&white teas, water, herbs (parsley, basil, thyme - you name it).

BUT: I am also quite fond of the dark-brown realm of the cocoa bean. if you can manage to control your intake of this substance, not allowing it to exceed 40 g a day (...), I see no reason why you shouldn't enjoy your melting, brown friend.

To the left is one of the chocolates I usually have a small stock of in my cupboard. This is a good blend of 85% cocoa and real vanilla, but the main reason I keep exactly this brand of chocolate in a cupboard or purse near me, is due to the grocery store's politics of what they choose to put on their shelves. This Swiss chocolate is nice, though, so there's no complaints there.

If in reciprocal nearness to this endazzling little friend, however, I generally go for the darkest of this brand. Their chocolates are organic, and if I remember correctly, real vanilla is used here as well. (The taste of vanillin is such a disappointment once you have bent your tongue to the real stuff.)

Everything in these products are organic, from the vanilla to the raw cane sugar (of which I would actually like some replacement, as I avoid sugar at all costs, exept for this, let's call it - aristocratic, habit).

If you like, you can check out their website here.

Now for the crown of the chocolate God-head; the best of the sumptious brown stuff I have ever tasted. Probably not a shock for most cooks or choco-connoisseurs: Valrhona chocolates.

Well, what can I say. I tasted this brand in a chocolate mousse (containing only chocolate and water) at a rather famous food-scribe's home about a year and a half ago. You know, I never really believed in the aphrodisiac effect of chocolate, but right there I nearly fell out of my pants. What a total experience of heavenly sumptiousness! I didn't just taste with my mouth; my whole body was in on the tasting. I remember feeling a sort of slow, still whirlwind spiralling around my head, heading down through my stomach, down to under my feet and then up again - all in a split second. Mind you, this split second lasted through the small (though sufficiently sized) portion of cocoa bliss. If I had had no self-control, the maker of this mousse could have had me, right there and then. (Only with the slight drawback of his beautiful girlfriend being in the room...)

I believe cooks mostly used their products earlier, but as the taste is so unbelievably --Mmmh-- more and more people seem to have discovered this brand.

Writing about this surely makes the level of saliva rise... I realize that I am actually quite capable of writing myself into a choc-craving state. Ah, well. Why not.

Healthy interests anyone? Anyone?